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MECHANISMS OF CHARACTER 
FORMATION 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

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MECHANISMS OF 
CHAEACTEE FOEMATION 



AN INTRODUCTION TO 
PSYCHOANALYSIS 



BY 

WILLIAM A. WHITE, M.D. 



*'That statement only is fit to be made 
public which you have come at in at- 
tempting to satisfy your own curiosity." 
R. W. Emerson, Spiritual Laws 



Nm fork 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

1916 

All rights reserved 



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Copyright, 1916. 

bt the macmillan company 



Set up and electrotyped. Published, October, 1916. 




GCT 26)916 



?)Cl.A445B4i 



PREFACE 

Psychology seems always to have been in danger of 
gravitating, on the one hand, in the direction of meta- 
physical abstractions and, on the other hand, in the 
direction of a refined physiology. The carefully 
conducted laboratory researches under wholly arti- 
ficial conditions, have, as a rule attracted little gen- 
eral interest and therefore had few practical re- 
sults. Certainly the field of mental medicine has 
benefited practically not at all as a result of all 
the years of laboratory psychology. A man seems 
to have been considered by the psychologist as an 
object of experiment and rarely as a human being 
in a social environment. True, the behaviorists 
may change all this but in the meantime a new psy- 
chology has come into existence, borne of the suffer- 
ings and the heart aches of the mentally ill — ^the 
psychology which is called psychoanalysis and, no 
matter what the remote history of events preceding 
its birth, properly also bears the name of its real 
creator. Prof. Sigmund Freud of Vienna — Freudian. 
/ This is a psychology which had its origin in trying 
I to help sick people, in trying to alleviate their suf- 
1 ferings and from the very first dealt with men and 
women in the raw, as they really were. This is the 
psychology I propose to give in outline in this book 
and which might well be called Humanistic not only 



PEEFACE 

in the accepted Protagorean meaning of that term 
but also because it deals with human beings, their 
hopes and fears, their aspirations and despairs, 
their good and their evil qualities as every one, but 
especially the priest and the physician knows them. 
It is a psychology which has opened the door to the 
understanding of man and as such I believe is the 
psychology which will prove of the greatest prag- 
matic advantage. It is some such scheme as I have 
outlined in this work which I think should be taught 
in the medical schools. Later it will find, I am sure, 
a much wider usefulness. Surely, however, the 
physician should know something of the principles 
which govern the operations of the most important 
of all the endowments of man. He should have some 
guides to help him to a real understanding of his 
patients and to point added ways to help them in 
their difficulties. A properly understood mental 
symptom may easily be the most important means 
of dealing with a given situation. The physician, 
therefore, of all men, should try to see deeper than 
the spoken word, he should be able to see what is 
hidden beneath. Such knowledge is often of ines- 
timable value. This volume on The Mechanisms of 
Character Formation, merely tries to lay down the 
broad principles which underlie human behaviour 
and which are necessary to comprehend before one 
can have a real appreciation of mental facts and 
their true meanings. 

W. A. TF. 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTEB PAGE 

Preface v 

I Introduction 1 

II The Genetic Approach to the Problem op 

Consciousness 14 

III The Fore- Conscious and the Unconscious . 35 

IV The Conflict 62 

Y Symbolism 76 

YI Dream Mechanisms 117 

YII The Family Komance 145 

YIII The "Will to Power 177 

The All-Powerfulness of Thought 

IX The Will to Power (cont.) 195 

Partial Libido Strivings 

X Extroversion and Introversion .... 217 

XI Organ Inferiority . 245 

XII The Eesolution of the Conflict .... 270 

XIII Summary and Synthesis .317 

Index 337 



MECHANISMS OF CHARACTER 
FORMATION 

CHAPTEE I 
INTRODUCTION 

It has been said that to write the history of hys- 
teria would be to write the history of medicine. 
The same might equally well be said of psy- 
chopathology, for mental disease is always with 
us and always has been and in the form of 
hysteria is peculiarly calculated to attract atten- 
tion. For the purposes of this work such an 
extensive historical programme is unnecessary. 
Present day positions are, for the most part, out- 
growths of comparatively recent tendencies, so a 
rapid study of these tendencies will place us in a 
position to take up the various problems as they 
now present themselves. 

Until the present generation mental disease had 
been looked upon from a most superficial and shallow 
standpoint — it had been, and is still to a large ex- 
tent, in the descriptive stage of development. De- 
scription and classification have been the moving 
forjes back of its study. In fact, it is only a few 
years since the most frequent question asked of a 
psychiatrist, or hospital superintendent, was *^What 



2 CHARACTER FORMATION 

classification do yon nseT' and writers of books for 
a hundred years have laid great weight npon the 
question of classification. In the eighteenth and 
early nineteenth centuries, in France particularly, a 
Linnean type of classification and naming was used 
following down each psychosis to its genus and 
species, a method that has sent its reverberations 
through the years until its force finally spent itself 
in such residuals as we see in Krafft-Ebing and 
Ziehen. 

In these days of description and classification the 
patient's symptoms were carefully observed. If he 
talked in broken sentences that had no obvious mean- 
ing to the listener, why then he was incoherent and 
incoherence was put down as one of his symptoms to 
be later woven into the description of the psychosis 
which was then duly classified and finally named. 
The naming of a psychosis had become a matter of 
importance all out of proportion to issues which 
we now look upon as vital. 

In an old manuscript ^ of about 370 b. c. a conver- 
sation is recorded between Morosophus, an Ele- 
atic philosopher and Protagoras, of Abdera. Pro- 
tagoras has just been describing the colour blindness 
of Xanthias, the son of Glaucus, and telling how he 
saw colours ditferently from others. Morosophus 
answers by saying: *'But surely Xanthias was 
diseased, and his judgments about colour are of no 
more importance than those of a madman. '^ To 
which Protagoras replies: **You do not get rid of 

iThe Papyri of Philonous. 



INTRODUCTION 3 

the difference by calling it madness and disease. 
And how would you define the essential nature of 
madness and disease?'' 

The same criticism may be made of the purely de- 
scriptive method. We do not get rid of the symp- 
tom by calling it incoherence and then after all — 
What is the essential nature of incoherence? The 
giving of the observed facts a name has not added 
to our understanding of them. The botanist can 
describe a flower, count the petals, sepals, and sta- 
mens and describe their size, shape and colour but 
it took a poet to flood these empty statistics ^ with 
light by showing that they are all modifications of 
one of the fundamental plant structures — the leaf. 

The present generation has witnessed a like change 
in viewpoint in the domain of psychopathology. It 
is no longer sufficient to record a symptom and de- 
scribe it in minute detail. It has not been satisfac- 
torily dealt with until an attempt at least has been 
made to answer the question, What does it mean! 
Present day psychopathology insists that all psychic 
facts of observation have meaning. This is its great 
contribution to the field of mental medicine. 

This change of the psychopathological viewpoint 
from the descriptive to the interpretative had its 
beginnings in the study of the neuroses and psycho- 
neuroses and in its early days was associated with 
the study and use of hypnotism as a therapeutic 
agent. The subject of hypnotism or rather mes- 
merism was dramatically exploited by Mesmer in 

2 Goethe in his "Metamorphosis of Plants." 



4 CHARACTER FORMATION 

the eighteenth century. How sincere Mesmer was 
in his belief as to the therapeutic value of this method 
is perhaps open to question, but his methods, as we 
look back upon them now, certainly smack of the 
methods of the charlatan. It was not until 1841 that 
the work of Braid of Manchester established the 
theory of suggestion upon a scientific basis. It is 
to him too that we owe the name *^ hypnotism." He 
discarded the idea of a magnetic fluid, believed that 
the hypnotic state was the result of a purely physio- 
logical condition of the nervous system and that the 
sleep was due to the fatigue of the eyelids and the 
concentration of attention. 

The study of hypnotic phenomena was pursued 
by the Medical School of Nancy under Lie- 
bault and at the Salpetriere by Charcot. Charcot 
did not begin his investigations until 1878. In the 
meantime Liebault had published his work on '* sleep 
and analogous states considered especially from the 
point of view of the action of the moral on the 
physical" (1866) and his work followed by that of 
Bernheim, Beaunis, and Liegeois served to reanimate 
the interest in hypnotism. The Nancy school did a 
great service to the cause by getting rid of the oc- 
cult and the mysterious such as the phenomena de- 
scribed by Luys which were produced in patients by 
approaching them with a magnet or with drugs or 
poisons in sealed tubes. All such matters were in- 
vestigated and very simply explained from a psycho- 
logical standpoint and the whole matter reduced to a 
common sense basis for further scientific work. 



INTRODUCTION 5 

In the meantime various studies were appearing 
of marked types of memory loss, amnesia, for whole 
sections of the patient's life. MacNish had pub- 
lished in his ^'Philosophy of Sleep'' (1830) his case 

of Madame X , Azam in 1858 had begun his study 

of the classical case of Felida, Dufay had published 

his case of somnambulism of Mile. E. L. (1876), 

Bourru and Burot published their studies of the 

successive personalities of Louis V (1888), who 

was studied by many authors besides from 1882 to 
1889. 

The common characteristic of all of these cases 
was that the patients suffered from *' attacks" or, 
as they have been called '^ secondary states," dur- 
ing which their whole conduct and manner was quite 
different from usual. These secondary states are 
of varying lengths of duration but when the, patient 
emerges from them there is no memory for what has 
happened during them. Thus we have the picture 
of these secondary states alternating with the or- 
dinary state of the individual and replacing it for 
varying periods giving rise to the phenomena of 
double personality, or if there is more than one 
variety of secondary states, to the phenomena of 
multiple personality. 

This phenomenon of multiple personality was ex- 
plained upon the presumption that certain constel- 
lations of ideas and affects, certain portions of the 
personality, were capable of breaking away, becom- 
ing dissociated from the main body and leading 
a quasi-independent existence, perhaps finally at- 



6 CHARACTER FORMATION 

tracting enough material to themselves and becom- 
ing sufficiently highly organised to constitute a more 
or less distinct personality capable of independent 
existence as such. Thus arose the hypothesis of 
dissociation. 

Inasmuch as, during the usual condition of the 
patient, all of the occurrences of the secondary 
state were forgotten, there was complete amnesia 
for these states, the patients coming out of them with 
absolutely no knowledge of what ha.d been going on 
during them, and despite the fact that while they were 
in the ascendant the patients may have appeared 
perfectly natural and conducted themselves in a rea- 
sonable and natural way, some hypothesis had to be 
formulated to account for the existence of these con- 
stellations of ideas of the secondary states when the 
normal personality resumed its sway. The hypoth- 
esis of the subconscious answered these require- 
ments by positing a region outside of consciousness, 
beneath the conscious threshold, in which that por- 
tion of the personality was resident which came to 
the surface during the secondary states. This hy- 
pothesis also accounted for the amnesia for these 
states. 

Other cases of double and multiple personalities 
and various types of dissociated states were pub- 
lished after this, especially by Flournoy, and in this 
country by Sidis, Prince, White and others, while 
in France the noteworthy work of Alfred Binet ap- 
peared (1891) which was later translated (1896) 
under the title * 'Alterations of Personality" and 



INTRODUCTION 7 

the many writings of Pierre Janet, notable among 
which are ''The Mental State of Hystericals ' ' (Eng- 
lish translation 1901), ''The Major Symptoms of 
Hysteria'' (Harvard Lectures 1907) and ^'Les 
Nevroses'' (1909). 

All of this work on hypnotism and the neuroses 
tended to culminate in Janet's formulations of the 
nature of the neuroses, especially hysteria, and in 
theories of the nature of hypnosis, which latter 
tended to include the neuroses. Janet says of hys- 
teria^ that it is "a form of mental depression char- 
acterised by a retraction of the field of personal 
consciousness and by a tendency to the dissociation 
and the emancipation of systems of ideas which by 
their synthesis constitute the personality." The 
retraction of the field of consciousness and the dis- 
sociation of systems of ideas are the important ele- 
ments in this definition, and from what has already 
been said we know what is meant. Naturally the 
dissociation of a portion of the personality will nar- 
row the field of consciousness. 

In addition to his work on hysteria Janet endeav- 
oured to separate ^ another group of symptoms, in- 
cluding the obsessions, impulsions, doubts, tics, agi- 
tations, phobias, delirium of contact, anguishes, neu- 
rasthenias, and the feelings of strangeness and de- 
personalisation often described under the name of 
cerebro-cardiac neuropathy or disease of Krishaber, 
under the term of psychasthenia. This group of 
symptoms he attributed to a lowering of the psycho- 

3 "Les N6vroses." * Loc. cit. 



8 CHARACTER FORMATION 

logical tension and a loss of the function of the real. 
His definition of psychasthenia runs: ^^Psychas- 
thenia is a form of mental depression characterised 
by the lowering of the psychological tension, by the 
diminution of the functions which permit action on 
reality and perception of the real, by the substitu- 
tion of inferior and exaggerated operations under 
the form of doubts, agitations, anguish, and by ob- 
sessing ideas which express the preceding troubles 
and which present themselves the same characters.'' 
The lowering of the psychological tension and the 
defect in the function of the real permit types of 
reaction to assume control in accordance with what 
he terms the hierarchy of psychological phe- 
nomena. 

The fundamental symptom of psychasthenia is 
this lowering of psychological tension. If we can 
think of psychic energy in mechanical terms and 
conceive of it as flowing along the fibre tracts like 
steam in a pipe, then we may believe that this force 
has to be maintained at a certain tension in order 
that the perceptions from the outside world may 
be appreciated at their true value. If attention is 
lowered the perceptions are not acute. This lack 
of acuteness gives origin to feelings on the part of 
the patient of incompleteness and insufficiency. 
Now this state of affairs involves a certain deficiency 
in the perception of reality which requires a certain 
concentration, in other words, a high psychological 
tension. The lowering of psychological tension, 
feelings of incompleteness, and deficiency in the 



INTRODUCTION 9 

^^ function of the real'' constitutes the fundamental 
feature of all this class of phenomena. 

To use another illustration. It is assumed that 
the perception of reality requires a high psycholog- 
ical tension. It is as if the normal response to 
reality were represented by the explosion of one 
hundred grains of gunpowder and the psychasthenic 
response were represented by, say seventy grains. 
In other words, unless the tension is high, the po- 
tential up to a certain point, the resulting explo- 
sion is an inadequate reaction, gives but a faint idea 
of what it really should be. 

The psychasthenic symptoms are based upon this 
inadequate perception of reality. The hazy view 
of the world resulting from the lowered psycholog- 
ical tension results in hazy, inaccurate ways of 
thinking, while lack of efficient perception makes the 
world of reality seem strange, unknowable, and at 
times of stress it seems to the psychasthenic that 
this vast external world of reality would close in 
upon him and crush him. It is the strange, the 
not-understood, the mysterious of which we are 
afraid and so are accounted for the states of fear 
and anguish. 

The lowered psychological tension gives rise to 
various symptoms in proportion to the degree of 
lowering. If the mental functions are erected into 
a hierarchy, in accordance with Janet's scheme, the 
accurate estimation of reality stands first, revery 
and imagination come lower down, and muscular 
movements last. As the tension is lowered reac- 



10 CHARACTER FORMATION 

tions will tend to follow in the order of this psycho- 
logical hierarchy. 

In these definitions of Janet is seen a distinct ad- 
vance upon the simple descriptive method and a 
decided attempt at analysis of symptoms and the 
formulation of interpretations. 

Janet concludes that the hypnotic state is of the 
same nature as hysterical somnambulism. In other 
words to be suggestible is to be hysterical and only 
hysterics can be hypnotised. Sidis lays great stress 
upon the process of dissociation, the principle of 
dynamogenesis and automatic activity of the disso- 
ciated systems, the cure by reassociation and the 
fundamental nature of what he calls the hypnoidal 
state. The hypnoidal state he believes is the primi- 
tive rest state of animals and in the higher animals 
has by differentiation developed into sleep. Under 
certain conditions hypnosis may develop instead of 
sleep. The hypnoidal state therefore occupies an 
intermediate position between waking and sleep on 
the one hand and waking and hypnosis on the other. 
Sollier believed hysteria to be sleep, localised or gen- 
eralised, temporary or permanent of the cerebral 
centres. We shall have occasion later to note the 
significance of these hypotheses which correlate hyp- 
nosis and the neurosis with sleep. 

Contemporaneous with these latter events, how- 
ever, Janet himself had seen the relation between 
dissociation and actual experiences and also had 
noted that the conduct of the patient in the second- 
ary states pointed to a psychological content related 



INTRODUCTION 11 

to these experiences. These same facts had also 
been more or less clearly recognised in other quar- 
ters, by Prince, Sidis, White and others. 

On the other hand in the field of the psychoses 
proper matters had been progressing, but along 
somewhat different lines. Perhaps the most notable 
effort to break away from the simplistic descriptive 
level was that of Wernicke in his ^^Grundriss der 
Psychiatric.'^ In general he endeavoured to do 
two things, to get at more accurately the content of 
the psychosis and also to formulate some principles 
as to the localisation of the disease process based 
upon the general principles worked out in the 
aphasias. 

Kraepelin struck out in a somewhat different di- 
rection and considered the psychoses from the life 
history point of view and divided them in accord- 
ance with their course and outcome into benign or 
recoverable and deterioration groups. In various 
other directions we see efforts at explanation, of 
which the best known are the efforts of the patholo- 
gists in their studies of the changes in the micro- 
scopic structure of the brain cells, and the chemists 
in their studies of metabolism, the changes in the 
various bodily fluids, etc. Kleist tried to correlate 
the motor disturbances of the psychoses with the 
anatomical facts, Bolton^ in his recent book, has 
endeavoured to explain the clinical pictures by a 
minute study of the cortex, while in such works as 
that of Gierlich and Friedmann^ we begin to see 

5 Nervous and Mental Disease, Monograph Series, No. 2. 



12 CHARACTER FORMATION 

decided traces of an attempt to read meaning into 
tlae psychological symptoms as such much after the 
manner of Janet, Sidis, and White. 

All this growth and development were necessary 
preconditions for future progress. In 1895 Breuer 
and Freud published their ^ ^ Studien iiber Hys- 
teric " ^ in which they indicated that the hysterical 
amnesias were for painful events and the amnesia 
was a defence against the pain that would result 
if they were recalled. Following this publication 
Breuer dropped out of the work but Freud kept on 
publishing and inaugurated what is now called the 
Freudian movement in mental medicine. 

Up to the appearance of Freud the various hypoth- 
eses had been pretty well worked out. Even the 
dissociation hypothesis of Janet, Prince, and Sidis 
had given about all it could to the interpretation 
of abnormal mental states. It seemed to have log- 
ically gotten to the end of its tether. Freud, for the 
first time, formulated an hypothesis which consid- 
ered that each psychic event had a history and which 
has led to the same recognition of the value of the 
past of the psyche which has been for so long ac- 
corded to the past of the body in the sciences of em- 
bryology and comparative anatomy. This past does 
not have only a temporal significance but, as in the 
sciences of embryology and comparative anatomy, 
a much greater significance expressed in terms of 
developmental progress. To understand, there- 

6 Largely translated in Kervous and Mental Disease, Monograph 
Series, No. 4, 



INTRODUCTION 13 

fore, the meaning of a given psycMc event means 
that the problem of its meaning must, quite as in 
the case of the body, be approached from the genetic 
point of view. 



CHAPTER II 

THE GENETIC APPROACH TO THE PROBLEM OF 
CONSCIOUSNESS 

In the growth and development of science there 
necessarily has to be passed through a stage which 
is devoted to the observation and collection of facts 
before general laws can be formulated which are 
calculated .to explain these facts, before meaning 
can be read into them. The observation and col- 
lection of facts belongs to the descriptive stage of 
development, while the explanation of their mean- 
ings belongs to the interpretative stage. Plants and 
animals in large numbers had necessarily first to 
be described and classified before such a far reach- 
ing generalisation, for example, as Darwin's, to 
account for the origin of species, could be formu- 
lated. 

Such far reaching interpretative formulations will 
be found, upon examination, to presuppose a de- 
terministic attitude of mind that proceeds upon the 
assumption that none of the phenomena in question 
are sufficiently accounted for on the theory that 
they are accidental or fortuitous in origin, but that, 
on the contrary, they have only been made possible 
by what has gone before, namely by an efficient 
cause. This deterministic attitude, which sees in 

14 



THE GENETIC APPROACH 15 

every phenomenon only the outgrowth of that which 
preceded only, has to be elaborated in order to re- 
alise that a complete explanation would involve a 
complete uncovering of the past. In other words 
any phenomenon can only be understood as the cul- 
mination of a series of events and is only what it 
is because they were what they were. The meaning 
of any particular fact is therefore only to be gath- 
ered when we have learned its history ; we can only 
understand it when we have come to know its past 
which made it possible. This is the genetic ap- 
proach which considers phenomena as end results 
to be understood only by understanding their past 
out of which they grew and of which they are an 
expression. 

In the sphere of the psyche it is but natural that 
a definite deterministic and genetic method should 
be long delayed as we are not only dealing with 
phenomena which are so complex as to be too long 
a way from concretely expressed laws for us to see 
any possibilities of explanation but, too, we have 
been dominated for generations by the theory that 
psychic events, many of them at least, are brought 
about ^^at wilP' in some mysterious way which 
precludes the necessity of even attempting to bring 
them under the operation of natural laws. 

A reaction from this crude conception of mental 
phenomena, from this hit and miss type of explana- 
tion which explains mental facts by the most ob- 
vious superficial causes and relegates many of them 
to the category of accidental or chance occurrences. 



16 CHARACTER FORMATION 

has come about in recent years as the result of a 
clearer understanding of the reasons of certain 
types of mental reactions, with a result that the 
theory of determinism has definitely taken its place 
in the field of psychology, — a place that it has long 
occupied in the biological sciences. The difference 
between this method of chance explanation and the 
method of determinism, which demands that for 
every phenomenon there must be an efficient cause, 
can perhaps be best illustrated by certain biological 
experiments. I will call attention to two small 
aquatic Crustacea ^ of the same genus, but for a long 
time considered of separate species. The Artemia 
salina, which was only found in water containing 
from 4 to 8 per cent, of salt, and the Artemia Mil- 
hausenii, which was only found in water containing 
at least 25 per cent, of salt. The differences in these 
supposedly different species consisted in the main 
in the differences in the size and shape of the tail 
lobes and number of hairs borne by these lobes. It 
has been definitely shown by experiment that these 
two species could at will be transformed one into 
the other by varying the percentage of salt in the 
water, and this transformation was so accurately 
dependent upon the percentage of salt that with a 
given percentage of salt it was possible to predict 
with perfect certainty a definite length of tail with 
a definite number of hairs borne upon its lobes. 

1 Marshall: "Biological Lectures and Addresses." II. The In- 
fluence of environment on the Structure and Habits of Animals. 
Macmillan & Co., New York, 1894. 



THE GENETIC APPROACH 17 

In other words, what appeared to be an entirely 
fortuitous characteristic of these two species was in 
some way accurately dependent upon the percent- 
age of salt in the water which they inhabited. 

A perhaps somewhat more instructive example is 
the example of heliotropism in certain animals and 
plants. It has been known for a long time that 
animals and plants were in some way attracted or 
repelled from sources of light. The old biologists 
were content with saying that they liked or did not 
like light. Such an explanation, it goes without 
saying, was superficial and unsatisfying. Accurate 
experimentation has proven precisely the conditions 
under which these phenomena manifest themselves, 
and has shown also the inadequacy of this type of 
explanation. 

Loeb demonstrated that what actually took place 
was that the plant or animal in question moved, not 
necessarily toward the lightness or darkness, and 
was therefore positively or negatively heliotropic, 
but moved in the direction of the rays of light even 
though at times this took a positively heliotropic 
animal into a relatively less lighted area. He ex- 
perimented^ with the caterpillar of the Porthesia 
chrysorrhoea by placing two test tubes in the direc- 
tion of the rays of light entering from a window. 
In the rear test tube he placed the caterpillars. A 
second test tube between this and the window he cov- 

2 Loeb: "Studies in General Physiology." I. The Heliotropism 
of Animals and its identity with the Heliotropism of Plants. Uni- 
versity of Chicago Press, 1905. 



18 CHARACTER FORMATION 

ered with black paper, with the exception of a nar- 
row strip running lengthwise with the tube. The 
caterpillars moved from the brightly lighted unpro- 
tected test tube into the darker test tube, and al- 
though they are positively heliotropic they moved 
from a lighter to a darker area, but in common with 
all such motions, however, they moved in the di- 
rection of the light rays. 

We see in these tropisms very definite reactions 
of organisms to specific influences in the environ- 
ment, and we are tempted to see certain analogies in 
the realm of mental action and to conclude that 
mental action is always definitely determined, and 
if perchance the reasons for any special mental re- 
action are not apparent it is because, unlike the 
example of the caterpillar just given, the conditions 
which bring it about are highly complex and are the 
resultant of many impulses acting in various and 
often in opposite directions. The movement of the 
caterpillar from the light into the darkness one is 
tempted to compare with the movement of a man, 
who, in the summer time, will cross a brightly lighted 
street to get on the shady side. 

The fortuitous and apparently accidental occur- 
rence of certain mental phenomena in the psychoses 
has been constantly assumed, and it is only recently 
that we are getting away from this viewpoint to the 
deterministic one as I have already illustrated. 
The same thing happened in biology with regard to 
this class of phenomena also. I refer to the phe- 
nomena of heteromorphosis such as the older biol- 



THE GENETIC APPEOACH 19 

ogists had observed. For example,^ tlie occasional 
regeneration of a tail in the place where the head 
ought to be in certain lower animals. This, like the 
phenomena just mentioned, however, has all been 
reduced to definite reactions under the influence of 
specific stimuli, and can be carried out at will in 
the laboratory. If a certain species of hydroid, for 
example, be suspended horizontally in the water so 
that the branches are directed downward the polyps 
on these branches disappear and the branches grad- 
ually transform themselves into roots. Being 
placed, in other words, in the environment natural 
to roots they develop into roots,, and so one organ 
can literally be transformed into another by chang- 
ing the environmental conditions. 

Even the realm of morphology which deals oniy 
with forms has been invaded and each form is now 
believed to be a ** diagram of forces,"^ a sort of 
final compromise among all the different forces 
within and without which tend to alter its form. 
Plateau^ showed that the minute sticky drops on 
a spider's web, their form and size, their distance 
apart and the presence of tiny intermediate drops 
were in their every detail explicable by the law of 
surface tension and that the spider had absolutely 
nothing to do with these results. 

And thus does science deal with matters that have 

sLoeb: loc. cit. XXXI, On the Transformation and Eegeneration 
of Organs. 

4 Thompson, D'Arcy Wentworth, Magnalia Naturae ; or the 
Greater Problems of Biology. Science, Oct. 6, 1911, 

5 Cited by Thompson, loc. cit. 



20 CHARACTER FORMATION 

been considered accidental, inexplicable, fortuitous, 
chance occurrences. That there will always remain 
a great unknown with which the philosopher may 
deal, does not alter the necessities of the scientific 
method which must proceed from the known to the 
unknown according to the principle laid down by 
Kant that we should exhaust every means to find ex- 
planation in the light of those properties of matter 
and forms of energy with which we are already ac- 
quainted. 

If we will consider for a moment the pathway 
along which biological phenomena have finally found 
a culmination in man I think we may admit, for 
purposes of description, that the earliest types of 
reactions which living beings show were largely 
physical, that is, such reactions for example as de- 
pend upon the amount of moisture in the environ- 
ment, upon the temperature, upon expansion and 
contraction, and the like, that, however, very early, 
and perhaps from the first they assume in addition 
a chemical or a physico-chemical character; the 
problems of nutrition, of metabolism, are found in 
the unicellular organisms and are confessedly of a 
chemical and a physico-chemical nature. The nerv- 
ous system comes into existence relatively low down 
in the animal scale, and when we find it we find a 
very simple series of ganglia and nervous cords, 
which, in their earliest beginnings, have largely to 
do with problems of nutrition directly or indirectly. 
Probably these earliest forms of nervous systems 
are more nearly comparable with what we call in 



THE GENETIC APPROACH 21 

the human being the sympathetic, or the vegetative 
nervous system. It is only relatively late in ani- 
mal development that we find the central nervous 
system, and last of all that we find evidences of 
anything to which we can properly give the name 
of psyche. 

From this evolutional point of view we may con- 
sider, for descriptive purposes only, the various 
functions as we see them exhibited in man. The 
physical reactions are such as are involved in the 
maintenance of the erect posture, the relation of 
the various curves in the spinal column, the adapta- 
tion of the joint surfaces to one another, and numer- 
ous other things : the chemical and physico-chemical 
reactions are still largely taken up with matters of 
growth, of nutrition, and of metabolism; the cen- 
tral nervous system functions occupy a still higher 
place and serve for bringing about larger co-ordina- 
tions between the various parts of the body; while 
the psyche manifests itself in all mental functions 
at a level hardly approached even by any of the 
lower animals. 

If we will take the broadest concept of the rela- 
tion of the individual to his environment and of the 
functions of these various levels, if I may so call 
them, we will see at once that the individual is al- 
ways endeavouring — ^to use a teleological term — to 
bring about an adjustment between himself and his 
surroundings, and that in order to do this is always 
in a position where it is advantageous to be able 
to concentrate all efforts in a given direction and 



22 CHARACTER FORMATION 

make everything subservient to that particular end. 
The first function is the function of adjustment or 
adaptation. The second function is the function of 
integration, and at each level we find the functions 
of the organism subserving both of these ends. As 
we proceed from the physical through the various 
nervous levels to the psychological level we find that 
each series of functions, as they increase in com- 
plexity, also serve to more thoroughly and more 
efficiently integrate the individual and therefore 
make it possible for him to bring all of his energies 
together and concentrate them upon a specific goal. 
At the same time this function of integration is the 
very necessary pre-condition to efficiency of adjust- 
ment to the environment. Let me illustrate. 

If I were to specify the type of instrument which 
man uses at the various levels to bring about these 
two ends, namely adjustment and integration, I 
should specify first, at the physical level, the lever. 
This is exemplified by the type of action between 
muscles and bones which serves the purpose of in- 
tegrating man's frame-work so that he may direct 
his exertions toward any particular end he wishes 
and thereby effect to that extent an adjustment with 
his surroundings. At the next level, the physico- 
chemical, the hormone is the type of instrument 
which is used to effect these two purposes. The 
chemical regulation of metabolism is a means 
whereby the body is related to itself in its different 
parts so that it grows and develops as a whole, each 
portion receiving and utilising only its proper 



THE GENETIC APPROACH 23 

amount and character of nutriment to serve the spe- 
cific purpose of the development of that part in so 
far as it may be useful to the whole organism. In- 
tegration is thus served, the organism as a whole is 
raised by this integration to a higher level of effi- 
ciency and thereby adjustment with the environ- 
ment to a greater nicety is rendered possible. This 
hormone regulation which is effected through the 
medium of the endocrinous glands is already in the 
higher animals under the control, very largely at 
least, of the vegetative nervous system, and so even 
at this level we are dealing with nervous control. 
At the next level, the level of the central nervous 
system, the reflex is the type of instrument which 
is used. The reflex is brought about by contact be- 
tween the individual and the environment. It may 
be simple, it may be compound, it may be condi- 
tioned or unconditioned, but it is by building up 
series of intricately interrelated reflexes that the 
organism comes to respond accurately to certain 
aspects of its environment. It is needless to illus- 
trate further how this process of compounding of 
reflexes serves both the purposes of integration and 
of adjustment. Still higher and further advanced 
in the course of evolution the type of instrument 
which is brought into play to effect these two pur- 
poses is the idea. The idea not only integrates by 
keeping before the individual the goal which he is 
endeavouring to reach and thereby serving to bring 
all his forces to bear to that specific end, but it also 
reflects the environment much more accurately than 



24 CHARACTER FORMATION 

can the stimulus which brings about the reflex and 
thereby leads to a much finer adjustment. And last 
of all we have arrived at that region which Mr. 
Spencer called the region of super-organic evolution^ 
the region of social psychology in which conduct gets 
its values from the approval or the disapproval of 
the community of which the individual forms a part. 
The type of instrument which is used at this level 
to effect the double purpose of integration and ad- 
justment is the social custom. Customs serve to 
integrate society rather than the individual per- 
haps by binding all its units together to a common 
end, but in so doing they serve also to effect a 
more efficient adjustment of the individual to the 
requirements of the community. 

It will thus be seen that in the process of evolu- 
tion there is an orderly progression from the lowest 
to the highest types of reaction until they culminate 
in the reactions at the psychological level, and these 
latter take on social values. 

While the individual may properly be considered 
as a biological unit, still the brief summary which 
I have given of the evolution of his various types 
of reaction shows a constant interplay between the 
individual and his environment which precludes the 
possibility of considering the individual as apart 
from the environment, and this impossibility is es- 
pecially to be borne in mind when the individual is 
considered as a social unit and his reactions are 
considered from the standpoint of the social level. 

All this is preliminary and necessary to the under- 



THE GENETIC APPROACH 25 

standing of the place that the psychological type of 
reaction occupies in the general scheme of the indi- 
vidual's development and it is also necessary to the 
understanding of how by a process of evolution 
the type of reaction which the individual manifests 
gets its values reflected from the social community. 
Conduct is the basis upon which the community 
judges the individual. The individual may think as 
he pleases and the community has no interest in 
his thoughts, but he must act along fairly well de- 
fined lines if he expects to be left undisturbed. Con- 
duct, therefore, has a social value and its social 
value is based upon its worth to the community, 
that is, its social efficiency. 

The main emphasis of this argument should be 
placed upon the fact that socially efficient conduct 
is an end result, depending, not simply upon psycho- 
logical integrity but back of that upon integrity at 
all reacting levels. Each level is dependent upon 
the one beneath, its historical antecedent. Conduct 
is the end result of the whole complex of mechan- 
isms and resulting compromises and its efficiency is 
a function of their integrity. 

For purposes of illustrating this process of inte- 
gration and adaptation let us take the example of 
the person who is learning to play the piano and 
see what happens. On the sheet of music there are 
a mass of signs that stand for notes of different 
pitch and duration, combinations of such signs in- 
dicating chords, other signs indicating pauses, and 
various directions as to rapidity or slowness, ex- 



26 CHARACTER FORMATION 

pression, loudness, repetition of certain portions, 
etc. The piano keyboard is composed of black and 
white keys arranged in certain definite relations to 
each other. The notes on the sheet of music each 
refer to a certain one of these keys and no other and 
in order to know exactly to which it refers the player 
must be able to ^*read music.'' 

All this mass of impressions presented to the 
learner are just so many separate perceptions, 
jumbled together, without arrangement and with- 
out meaning. As the days pass by, however, there 
begins to emerge from this mass a perception of 
relationship among its several parts, it begins to 
become comprehensible, it takes on meaning. The 
relation between the printed notes and the piano 
keys becomes definite, the keys are struck and sounds 
that are pleasant are produced if the correct rela- 
tionship has been maintained in the striking, sounds 
of an unpleasant quality if a mistake has been made. 
The mass of perceptions are beginning to arrange 
themselves in an orderly way. They are being con- 
stellated. 

Now this process continues and the orderly ar- 
rangement of mental states as related to these out- 
side conditions becomes more and more extensive and 
more and more perfect. There is taking place an 
adjustment of the individual to the environment, a 
building up of a certain relationship between the 
outside conditions — the sheet of music and the piano 
keyboard — and the individual, and this relationship 
becomes progressively more and more exact and 



THE GENETIC APPROACH 27 

more and more efficient. As the adjustment becomes 
more perfect disharmonies with their resulting pain- 
ful mental states are less frequent — the harmony 
and efficiency of the adjustment is improved with 
practice. 

It will be helpful at this point to point out briefly 
some of the differences in the state of consciousness 
of the beginner on the piano and of the finished 
product, the accomplished performer. 

At first while learning, each movement is painfully 
conscious, the fingers have to be watched, each note 
separately observed, and the required movements 
are slowly and awkwardly executed. When profi- 
ciency has been acquired the same results are ac- 
complished far better, with much less effort, and 
with so little attention that an occasional glance 
over the shoulder and even entering into the con- 
versation of those about does not seem to interfere. 
At first a note has to be carefully looked at in order 
to recognise it, then the signature, the tempo, the 
various directions, and its relation to other notes 
in the other clef have all to be separately observed 
before it can be finally sought out on the piano and 
struck in its proper time and place. Later all these 
things are appreciated at a glance and the repro- 
duction is instantaneous. In this way hundreds of 
notes in all sorts of relations and combinations may 
be struck in a single minute as the eye skims rap- 
idly across the page of music, and the translation 
from the printed signs to the appropriate sounds is 
relatively immediate. 



28 CHARACTER FORMATION 

It will be seen that a relationship has been estab- 
lished with outside conditions that is very definite, 
the adaptation of the individual to the environment 
is highly efficient and takes place in a way so nearly 
absolutely fixed that it is practically predictable. 
There has been established by a slow process of 
growth a complex of mechanisms, mechanisms that 
are automatic or quasi-automatic in character so 
that whenever the appropriate stimulus is applied 
the whole machinery goes off in a perfectly well de- 
fined way in all its various parts. This is the 
adaptive side of the process of learning. 

In addition to the phenomena described there is 
another series of phenomena that equally deserves 
notice. The beginner in endeavouring to correlate 
his muscular movements to correspond with the mu- 
sical score is, we say, very awkward. He not only 
makes many mistakes, his movements are not ac- 
curately adjusted to the specific ends, but he makes 
many unnecessary movements. His whole body is 
more or less involved in the effort. He twists and 
turns in his seat, bends forward to look more keenly 
at the notes, screws his head to one side and per- 
haps sticks out his tongue or makes strained grim- 
aces as he attempts difficult adjustments with his 
fingers that require him to strike several notes at 
once, using both hands at the same time. These 
are the result of the diffuse discharges of energy 
that we see in all learning processes and especially 
in the natural development of the child and are the 
expression, on the neurological side, of the opening 



THE GENETIC APPROACH 29 

up of new channels, tlie preliminary phenomena to 
the selection of a final common pathway along which 
the nervous energy gets its most efficient outlet. 
The eye and the hand have, so to speak, to learn 
to operate harmoniously together and to do this 
must open up new paths of association. "When the 
process of learning has been completed the various 
parts of the body involved have come to act har- 
moniously together for the accomplishment of the 
common end with the elimination of all unnecessary 
movements. This is the process of integration. 

In this description it will be recognised that we 
are describing a sort of activity that reminds us of 
the reflex. The reflex, however, is still more rigidly 
defined in its possibilities, its response is, to all in- 
tents and purposes, absolutely the same always, 
whenever a stimulus is applied. Then, too, it is no 
longer under the control of the individual but oc- 
curs whether or no. The piano playing activities 
on the other hand are always under the control of 
the subject. He may play or not, as he sees fit, 
and he may vary the production from the written 
direction to suit his own whim. The various ac- 
tivities of his fingers in seeking the notes are, how- 
ever, not changed in either instance, they go on in 
their accustomed way in both cases. 

This type of activity is called automatic, though 
it will be seen from the description that it is really 
a complex product containing, it is true, many au- 
tomatic components, but containing also many that 
have not reached that degree of definiteness of re- 



30 CHARACTER FORMATION 

sponse — activities that are still in the proving ground 
of automatisms. 

One of the changes then that has been undergone 
in the process of learning is a change toward an 
automatic character of the reaction. With continu- 
ous practice the activities become more and more 
automatic. 

Another change, which it is important for us to 
note, is a change in the degree of awareness that ac- 
companies these activities. The change toward 
greater automatism implies this change. From a 
condition of very acute awareness of every minute 
adjustment in the beginning there is reached a con- 
! dition of almost absent awareness when a high 
grade of efficiency has been reached. At least those 
\ portions of the adjustment that have become truly 
! automatisms have become activities of the unaware 
region of consciousness. 

To put the matter a little differently, when the 
same or similar conditions in the environment are 
repeatedly presented to the organism so that it is 
called upon to react in a similar or almost identical 
/ way each time, there tends to be organised a mechan- 
' ism of reaction which becomes more and more auto- 
matic and is accompanied by a state of mind of less 
and less awareness. Or to put the obverse. Con- 
sciousness, or at least clear conscious awareness, ap- 
pears only upon attempts at adjustment to condi- 
tions that are unusual, at ^^ moments of conflict, '^ on 
those occasions the like of which have not previously 
occurred in the experience of the individual and in 



THE GENETIC APPROACH 31 

relation to which, therefore, there has been no pos- 
sibility of organising reactive mechanisms. To pnt 
it again in a little different form. Clear conscious- 
ness does not accompany reaction to stimuli when 
the issue in conduct can only occur in a single di- 
rection, when there are no alternatives. Conscious- 
ness is an expression, as it were, of conflict. It 
arises in response to stimuli under conditions that 
make it possible to react by a choice of a line of con- 
duct in any one of many directions. 

This state of affairs calls to mind an analogy. 
Consciousness arises only under conditions of con- 
flict, conditions of great complexity, of increased 
resistance as compared with the facile reaction along 
the definite lines of a reflex arc. When in the path 
of an electric current, a complex network of wiring 
is introduced that raises the resistance to the pas- 
sage of the current, we find that accompanying its 
passage there goes along a marked rise of tempera- 
ture. As heat goes along with increase in resist- 
ance in an electric circuit so consciousness goes 
along with increase in resistance in a mental circuit. 
Herrick^ has said ^^the various degrees or grades 
of consciousness are expressions of successively 
higher forms of the co-ordination of forces." 

We must think then of full, clear consciousness as 
only accompanying those mental states of adjust- 
ment to new and unusual conditions : conditions per- 

6 C. L. Herrick: The Metaphysics of a Naturalist cited by Pro- 
fessor Mary Whiton Calkins in General Standpoints: Mind and 
Body. The Psychological Bulletin, January 15, 1911. 



32 CHARACTER FORMATION 

mitting of various reactions and involving there- 
fore selective judgment, critique, choice — in short, 
reason; and in proportion to the frequency of the 
repetition of the same adjustment the mental state 
accompanying such repetition tends to sink out of 
the field of clear consciousness. If we will con- 
sider the infinitude of adjustments the individual 
has to make to his environment we will see that this 
is a conservative process. As soon as a given ad- 
justment is well formed it is pushed aside and the 
field of clear consciousness left free for new prob- 
lems. 

The same sort of process is responsible for phe- 
nomena in the race consciousness. The word ^^chan- 
delier'' originally was applied to a holder for a 
candle. The application continued for a long time, 
was frequently repeated, and was organised, there- 
fore, into a stably reacting mechanism. The change 
in the source of light to gas failed absolutely to 
change the reaction and it is only lately, now that 
gas has long since been replaced by electricity that 
we occasionally hear the word * ^ electrolier. ' ' 
Stated in this way the method of reaction will be 
seen to have a biological significance and not merely 
an individual or even a human importance. 

All of these considerations go to demonstrate that 
the field of full consciousness and rational self-con- 
trol is a very limited one, but that on the contrary 
the great majority of our mental states, our desires, 
inclinations, and actions are conditioned by mechan- 
isms of which we are more or less unaware. It is 



THE GENETIC APPROACH 33 

worth while in passing to call attention to the prin- 
ciple that in proportion as the control of conduct 
is outside of the region of clear consciousness it is 
apt to go astray under conditions even slightly dif- 
ferent from those that were associated with the 
formation of the reaction — acting in accordance 
with the established mechanism even though con- 
ditions have changed, as with the example of the 
word ^* chandelier" just cited. 

The final result of this way of thinking of con- 
sciousness is that we find ourselves considering it in 
terms of energy, we are thinking of it as dynamic 
rather than as static, we are no longer justified in 
speaking of mind as if it were a something resident 
somewhere, in the brain for example. We have had 
to face the same situation in the matter of so-called 
^^ disease entities" and ^* disease processes" which 
are only somewhat more subtle forms of expression 
for the concrete devils of the middle ages that were 
responsible for sickness by taking up a residence in 
the patient's body. Just as in the middle ages the 
disease was thought of as the devil which invaded 
the patient's body so diseases now are thought of 
as entities which come out of the nowhere, settle 
down upon the patient and make him ill by setting 
up a disease process. Now we have learned that 
what we call disease is the series of phenomena 
which come into existence when the body finds itself 
in conflict with some tendency which makes for its 
disintegration or destruction and as a matter of 
fact the so-called symptoms are evidences of the self- 



34 CHARACTER FORMATION 

conserving activities called forth by the conflict. 
So we must learn to think of consciousness, not as 
a concrete thing in some way different from but 
united with the body, but as that series of phenom- 
ena which come into existence at certain levels of 
the processes of integration and, adjustment. 



CHAPTER III 
THE FORE-CONSCIOUS AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 

The unconscious as a paii; of consciousness may- 
be a misnomer. Unconscious ideas may involve a 
contradiction in terms ; ^ and yet the term uncon- 
scious is fully justifiable if we only start out by un- 
derstanding that it is a concept only and we do not 
try to think of it as occupying, so to speak, any 
particular spatial relationship in consciousness, 
such, for example, as is implied by the term sub- 
conscious. The unconscious is an hypothesis and 
as such it has a right to exist only if it explains the 
facts. 

We are familiar with the discontinuity of con- 
sciousness. I may say, for instance, in addressing 
a number of persons, that I know of something that 
they all know, but that at that particular moment 
not one of them know that they know it and that 
they will at once recognise the truth of my state- 
ment the moment I tell them what it is. The mul- 
tiplication table! Of course they knew it, but a 

1 "Such notions as 'solid solutions,' 'liquid crystals,' invisible 
'light,' divisible 'atoms,' 'unconscious' mental life, seem mere fool- 
ishness until we realise that the work of science is not to avoid 
verbal contradiction, but to frame conceptions by which we can 
control the facts." (F. C. S. Schiller, "Studies in Humanism.") 

35 



36 CHARACTER FORMATION 

moment before nothing was further from their sev- 
eral minds. Where was it though? Where did it 
come from at the moment my words brought it 
flashing into their consciousness? Where are our 
ideas during dreamless sleep? During anaesthesia? 
During periods of unconsciousness from fainting? 
No phenomenon of mental life is more striking 
than these temporary periods when mental life seems 
actually to cease to exist. Consciousness lapses for 
a period, during a faint, for example, and then 
makes its appearance again without having seemed 
to change in the least as a result. Such experiences 
emphasise the discontinuity of consciousness and 
demonstrate that continuity of consciousness is not 
a requisite of mental integrity. Then there are 
certain conditions, a good example is the state of 
mind during the carrying out of a post-hypnotic 
suggestion, in which, for the time being, certain ideas 
that were previously not present to consciousness 
become suddenly active. The subject carries out 
the suggestion without any knowledge of the rea- 
sons therefor. In the hypnotic state, however, the 
suggestions of the operator are clearly in mind. 
Here there is no lapse of consciousness but two 
distinct states in one of which ideas are absent that 
are present in the other, a condition seen much more 
elaborately carried out in states of multiple per- 
sonality with the development of ^^ secondary states" 
already referred to in Chapter I. Such conditions 
as these have given rise to such terms as ^dissocia- 
tion,'' ** splitting, ' ' *' sub-conscious ' ' — purely de- 



THE UNCONSCIOUS 37 

scriptive terms for expressing the phenomena as ob- 
served. 

A great many of our ideas, which, for one reason 
or another, are out of mind for the time being can 
nevertheless be brought into consciousness, so to 
speak, at call. Like the multiplication table they 
are always ready at hand when needed. This group 
of ideas have the characteristic that they are all of 
the same value for consciousness. One group might 
as well be conscious as the other and whether this 
or that group is conscious depends upon their in- 
tensity, the focus of attention, etc. This is the state 
of affairs in the ^'secondary states'' which always 
lie relatively near the surface, that is, can with 
comparative ease be made conscious. Those ideas 
which are out of the focus of attention, but which 
are capable of voluntary recall are said to be fore- 
conscious J or in the fore-consciousness. It is, how- 
ever, as we shall see, very different with the uncon- 
scious for here we cease to be upon purely descrip- 
tive ground. 

The term unconscious then is no longer a purely 
descriptive term, but it is a term applied to an 
hypothesis ^ pure and simple. The unconscious is 
reserved to explain, not to describe, a different class 
of phenomena. If we observe a man violently shak- 

2 Bernard Hart: The Conception of the Subconscious. Jour, of 
15. Psych., Feb.-March, 1910. 

Sigmund Freud: Einige Bemerkungen tiber den Begriff des Un- 
bewussten in der Psychoanalyse. Int. Zeit. f. Arztliche Psycho- 
analyse, Jahr. I, Heft 2. 



38 CHARACTER FORMATION 

ing his head in the midst of an animated discussion 
of which we can not hear the words we are justi- 
fied in assuming that the meaning of the head shake 
is a negation — an assumption that may or may not 
be borne out by the facts of a subsequent inquiry. 
Such an assumption is an hypothesis which must 
stand or fall, like the hypothesis of the unconscious, 
solely upon the evidence — the possibility of resum- 
ing the facts under it. If upon inquiry we learn 
that the head shake really did mean a negation, if 
the subject is able to tell us that, then our assump- 
tion is proved to be correct. If, however, we ob- 
serve a person with a certain habit, a habit of hand- 
washing, we have a right to guess in the same way 
at its meaning. Upon inquiry, however, if we find 
that that person can give absolutely no reason for 
the action, or a reason that is manifestly inadequate, 
we have to withhold our judgment as to its mean- 
ing. Now if we subject this person to psychoanaly- 
sis and find that no matter from what angle we ap- 
proach this action we invariably find that we can 
only reach an adequate explanation of it upon the 
assumption that by the hand-washing is symbolised 
a purification from sin, then we have a right to as- 
sume that there exists in the mind of that person a 
feeling of sin connected with the hands from which 
he tries to rid himself by the washing. This as- 
sumption of a feeling of sin connected with the 
hands, which tends to find expression in the con- 
duct of the individual, a psychological constellation 
to which the term complex is applied, is valid, al- 



THE UNCONSCIOUS 39 

thougli there is no proof of the actual existence in 
the mind at the time of the washing of any such 
motivating ideas, because by such an assumption, 
and only by such an assumption, can the conduct be 
adequately explained and so understood. 

The unconscious therefore means nothing as to 
location, nothing as to the character of relation to 
the conscious except that it implies that the ideas 
are neither conscious nor fore-conscious. It is only 
an attempt to explain psychological facts in psycho- 
logical terms. The patient's conduct is explainable 
on the assumption that such a complex exists, not 
otherwise. 

We come thus to the important conclusion that 
mental life, the mind, is not equivalent and co-equal 
with consciousness. That, as a matter of fact, the 
motivating causes of conduct often lie outside of 
consciousness and, as we shall see, that conscious- 
ness is not the greater but only the lesser expression 
of the psyche. Consciousness only includes that of 
which we are aware , while outside of this somewhat 
restricted region there lies, as we have seen, a much 
wilder area in which lie the deeper motives for con- 
duct and which not only operates to control conduct, 
but also dictates what may and what may not be- 
come conscious. Stanley HalP has very forcibly 
put the matter by using the illustration of the ice- 
berg. Only one-tenth- of the iceberg is visible above 
water; nine-tenths is beneath the surface. It may 

3 Some Aspects of the Early Sense of Self, Am. Jour. Psychology, 
Vol. IX, No. 3. 



40 CHARACTER FORMATION 

appear in a given instance that the iceberg is being 
carried along by the prevailing winds and surface 
currents, but if we keep our eyes open we will sooner 
or later see a berg going in the face of the wind and 
so apparently putting at naught all the laws of 
aerodynamics. We can understand this only when 
we come to realise that much the greater portion of 
the berg is beneath the surface and that it is moving 
in response to invisible forces addressed against 
this submerged portion. 

We can only come to an understanding of this 
state of affairs when we understand the meaning and 
the placement of consciousness in organic evolution. 

Consciousness, as we have seen in Chapter II, only 
arises as a result of the processes of integration and 
adaptation which occur at the psychological level. 
This process of adjustment is not only a passive 
one, so to speak, but also an active one in that the 
individual reaches out, as it were, and tries to mould 
his environment to suit his desires. 

Consciousness only arises late in the course of 
evolution and only in connection with adjustments 
that are relatively complex. If I am walking along 
a country road-way leading through the woods as 
far as the eye can reach, I may permit myself to 
indulge in deep thought quite oblivious of my imme- 
diate surroundings while I go on walking in a purely 
automatic way. Such an arrangement works very 
well until some new element is introduced into the 
situation, some new adjustment is demanded. Sup- 
pose now that I come to a point where the road sepa- 



THE UNCONSCIOUS 41 

rates into two roads going in quite different direc- 
tions. I at once find that a state of mental ab- 
straction does not meet the requirements, I must 
rouse myself to full consciousness and choose which 
road I am to follow. 

Consciousness arises when new adjustments are 
demanded, at points of conflict, moments requiring 
choice. Activities can only sink out of the field of 
awareness by becoming automatic, but automatic ac- 
tivities are, by the same token, fixed, — not fluid, not 
adjustable to changing conditions. Therefore when 
they no longer serve under given conditions, when 
a new adjustment is required, the whole matter has 
to be dragged up into the field of awareness, made 
conscious, in order that an effective reaction may 
result.* 

Thus far, however, we have only been dealing, in 

4 "Consciousness is the light that plays around the zone of pos- 
sible actions or potential activity which surrounds the action really 
performed by the living being. It signifies hesitation or choice. 
Where many equally possible actions are indicated without there 
being any real action (as in a deliberation that has not come to 
an end), consciousness is intense. When the action performed is 
the only action possible (as in activity of the somnambulistic or 
more generally automatic kind), consciousness is reduced to noth- 
ing." (Bergson: "Creative Evolution," p. 144.) 

"Throughout the whole extent of the animal kingdom, we have 
said, consciousness seems proportionate to the living being's power 
of choice. It lights up the zone of potentialities that surround the 
act. It fills the interval between what is done and what might 
be done. Looked at from without, w^e may regard it as a simple 
aid to action, a light that action kindles, a momentary spark fly- 
ing up from the friction of real action against possible actions." 
{Ibid., p. 179.) 



42 CHARACTER FORMATION 

the examples given, with, the exception of the hand- 
washing example, with ideas that might as well have 
been conscious. They were unconscious only in the 
sense that they were not conscious, i.e., they were out 
of the focus of attention. They might as well have 
been conscious, and so were what is known as fore- 
conscious ideas. The term unconscious is used in 
a different sense : an interpretive rather than a de- 
scriptive sense, and applies to states of mind that 
are not only not-conscious, but instead of being 
readily accessible to consciousness are, as we shall 
see later, actively kept out of consciousness by the 
utilisation of a considerable amount of energy. 
This is the process known technically as repression 
and involves the concept of conflict.^ 

Conflict is the very root and source of life. With- 
out conflict we could never have risen further in 
our nervous organisation than a series of reflex arcs 
even if we could have lived at all. The great crea- 
tive energy, call it what we will, the libido as it has 
been called, or horme as Jung now prefers to call 
it, the poussee vitale, or elan vital of Mr. Bergson, 
is ever striving to free itself from its limitations, 
to go onward and upward, to create, and in order 
to do this it must overcome resistances, tear loose 
from drag backs, emancipate itself from the inertia 
of lower callings. The energy which succeeds is 
sublimated, refined, spiritualised. Out of the con- 
flict, if the battle is won, come new adjustments on 

5 The concepts of repression and conflict will be dealt with in 
the next chapter. 



THE ' UNCONSCIOUS 43 

a higher plane ; if the battle is lost there comes fail- 
ure — the sinking to a lower plane of activity. The 
conflict, however, does not cease. Each new vantage 
won becomes but the battleground for new prob- 
lems, and like the conflict that Bergson describes, 
force always trying to free itself from its material 
prison, so the libido is ever trying to break away 
from its limitations. 

At this point we already begin to see somewhat 
of the meaning of the unconscious, the most valuable 
concept of recent times in the field of mental medi- 
cine and for which we are indebted to Freud. It 
is that portion of the psyche which has been built 
up and organised in the process of development 
and upon which reality plays in the form of new 
and hitherto unreacted to situations, and in the 
friction resulting strikes forth the spark of con- 
sciousness. 

The advance in civilisation has been associated 
with, if not in large measure dependent upon the 
accumulation of man in larger groups. The primi- 
tive man, living only in very small groups, could 
do very much as he pleased. His activities rarely 
crossed the interests of others, and so he was per- 
sonally free to follow absolutely the bent of his in- 
clinations. In response, however, to his *^herd in- 
stinct"^ he tended always to come into closer and 
closer association with his fellows and to form 
larger and larger alliances. When larger groups 

6 Trotter: Herd Instinct and its Bearings on the Psychology of 
Civilised Man, Soc. Rev., 1908. 



44 CHARACTEB FORMATION 

were formed then it became correspondingly less 
possible for him to do always just what he wished 
without consideration, because what he wished 
might run counter to the wishes of some one else 
in the community. The larger the group, the more 
complex its organisation, the more numerous the 
points at which the several component units touched 
each other, the more frequent became these hin- 
drances to free individual activity. Difficulties 
of adjustment arose frequently, desire must needs 
constantly be curbed, activities have more and more 
frequently to be inhibited altogether, to be modified 
as a result of some compromise, or finally satisfac- 
tion has to be indefinitely postponed. Men, for ex- 
ample, wish for money. The simplest way to get 
it would be to just take it. The demands of a civil- 
ised community, however, require that he should 
first go through that complicated process of earn- 
ing it before he is entitled to possess it. This most 
men do, although but a limited acquaintance with 
human problems is sufficient to demonstrate how 
frequently the unconscious desire to travel the 
shorter path comes to expression in the ** sharp 
practice'' of many business men. We begin to see 
what is meant by the statements that the uncon- 
scious can only wish in the sense that as reality 
tends to force new adjustments the already formed 
adjustments by offering an obstacle to this change 
can be said to thus express a wish or in other words 
a tendency, which in this case is a contrary tend- 
ency to that of reality. We can also understand 



THE UNCONSCIOUS 45 

what is meant by the statement that civilisation in- 
volves the postponement of the satisfaction of de- 
sire into an ever-receding futureJ 

These are general statements: let us be a little 
more specific. Man has always tried to bring about 
what he desired. Primitive man's trials were sim- 
ple and ineffectual. He used the methods of magic. 
No matter how ineffectual they were, however, no 
matter how simple and childlike, nevertheless we 
see in these methods the germs of our present day 
science. Primitive man did the best he could, his 
means were crude, but he kept on trying — he was 
on the right path. 

The Polynesians had a crude compass-form in- 
strument ^ which they used as a device for obtaining 
favourable winds during canoe voyages. It had 
several holes bored in it which opened in various 
directions. They obtained a favourable wind by 
stopping up all the holes that opened in the direc- 
tions of unfavourable winds and only leaving open 
the hole which opened in the right direction for the 
favourable wind to blow through. Then by pro- 
nouncing the proper incantations the trick was done. 

We can not fail to see, however, in this device, 
crude as it was, a beginning attempt at the classifica- 
tion of natural phenomena — in this case the winds. 
The very making of such an instrument implied cer- 

7 Ultimately heaven. 

8 Gill: "Myths and Songs from the South Pacific"; cited by 
Josiah Royce: Primitive Ways of Thinking with Special Refer- 
ence to Negation and Classification, The Open Court, Oct., 1913. 



46 CHAKACTER FORMATION 

tain observations and classification of winds with a 
grouping into favourable and unfavourable. 

Such an attempt at the control of natural phe- 
nomena, involving to begin with their classification, 
is seen on a large and relatively more comprehen- 
sive scale in the social phenomenon of totemism. 
The tribe is divided into a certain number of totem 
clans and each of these clans includes certain nat- 
ural objects — the so-called sub-totems. By some 
of the Australian tribes this division of natural ob- 
jects among the several clans is so extended as to 
include all nature. Thus in the Mount Gambler 
tribe in South Australia^ the fish hawk clan in- 
cludes smoke, honeysuckle, trees, etc.; the pelican 
clan includes dogs, blackwood trees, fires, frost, etc. ; 
the crow clan includes rain, thunder, lightning, win- 
ter, hail, clouds, etc.; and so on for other clans. 
Each clan has parcelled out to it, so to speak, a cer- 
tain portion of nature which it is its duty to look 
after ^^ and control for the benefit of the tribe, of 
course by the methods of magic. The same thing 
is seen in the use of split totems. Among the Ba- 
hima, a tribe of herdsmen in Africa, such split or 
part totems refer to their cattle.^^ Thus we find 
such totems as cow's tongue, cow's entrails, the 
small stomach of cattle, the leg of an ox, a sheep's 
head, the hearts and kidneys of animals, an unborn 

9 J. G. Frazer: "Totemism and Exogamy, A Treatise on Certain 
Early Forms of Superstition and Society," Vol. I, p. 79. 

10 Frazer: "Totemism and Exogamy," Vol. I, p. 135. 

11 Frazer: "Totemism and Exogamy," Vol. II, p. 536. 



THE UNCONSCIOUS 47 

calf, a cow with a black stripe, a cow with a white 
back, speckled cattle, grey cattle, hornless cattle, 
humped cattle, a cow born feet first, cows that have 
drunk salt water, and cows that have been to the 
bull. 

Very early, therefore, man begins to classify nat- 
ural phenomena in his own crude, simple way. This 
classification comes about contemporaneously with 
his attempts to control them, to get from nature 
what he wants. It is a long, painful series of trials 
and errors before a method is evolved that fits into 
the requirements of actuality. 

For example — the members of a Kangaroo ^^ clan 
endeavor to cause the multiplication of kangaroos 
by opening their veins and allowing their blood to 
flow over the edge of a rock and so drive from it 
the spirits of the kangaroos supposed to be con- 
tained in it and thus ensure the multiplication of 
this animal. The head man of the Grass-seed clan ^^ 
of the Kaitish tribe in Central Australia in his en- 
deavor to increase the amount of grass seed, among 
other things, takes a quantity of grass seed in his 
mouth and blows it about in all directions. The 
first of these practices will never get anywhere. 
Kangaroos can never be multiplied in that way. 
The second, however, offers possibilities. The 
Kaitish tribe are densely ignorant. They do not 

i2Frazer: "Totemism and* Exogamy," Vol. I, p. 107, and Vol. IV, 
p. 20. 

13 Frazer : "Totemism and Exogamy," Vol. I, pp. 214-218, and 
Vol. IV, p. 20. 



48 CHARACTER FORMATION 

even know that a seed planted in the ground will 
sprout and grow. Is it not possible that their magic 
rites for the increase of grass seed might not, as a 
result of the sprouting of grass wherever the head- 
man had blown the seed, gradually lead to a recog- 
nition of this simple fact from which the earliest be- 
ginnings of agriculture could have their origin! Is 
it not possible that the method of trial and error 
generation after generation might result in the dis- 
carding of the rites of the kangaroo men and the 
preservation of those of the grass-seed men? 

The devious ways by which such methods often 
lead to practical results is well illustrated by cer- 
tain practices of the Maori. ^^ They have a food, 
the kumara, which is regarded as the food in times 
of peace as the fern-root is regarded as the food in 
times of war. As the kumara is sacred to peace 
when an enemy is about to attack them they place 
kumara on the road that the enemy must pass along. 
They chant certain incantations and leave it there 
with the result that when the enemy reaches the 
spot where it is they becom'e panic stricken and 
flee. As a consequence of this custom war parties 
take pains to avoid the beaten paths of travel and 
take round-about and out of the way courses to 
reach their enemy : a method of procedure justifiable 
on quite other grounds than the influence of the ku- 
mara. Is it not probable that the net result of such 

14 White: "Ancient History of the Maori." Cited by Joyce, loc. 
cit. 



THE UNCONSCIOUS 49 

practices would be to bring the real results of the 
round-about route into consciousness and cause it 
to be adopted rationally or at least to cause an 
atrophy and gradual giving up of the old practices 
with the retention of the useful ones to which they 
had led? 

It is remarkable, in fact it is nothing less than 
astounding, to see to what accurate results such 
blind methods have led. This is excellently well 
shown in the matter of exogamy. In general it may 
be said that the earliest clearly formulated exogam- 
ous tribal organisation consisted in a separation of 
the clans of a tribe into two exogamous groups or 
phratries.^^ Further developments came by suc- 
cessive dichotomies resulting respectively to four- 
class and eight-class systems. This splitting up of 
the tribe into exogamous classes was for the express 
purpose of preventing incest, each successive split- 
ting serving this end more perfectly by removing 
still further the possibilities of the marriage of near 
kin. 

This system, devised by savages so ignorant that 
they did not even know the part the male plays in 
the reproductive process, is nevertheless justified 
by our present day scientific standards. For ex- 
ample, the two-class system is especially designed 
to prevent the marriage of brothers and sisters, 
while the four-class system, a later development, is 
especially designed to prevent the marriage of par- 
is Frazer: "Totemism and Exogamy," Vol. IV, p. 116 sqq. 



50 CHARACTER FORMATION 

ents and children.^® This is precisely the reverse 
of what we should have expected a priori. We 
would have expected the union of parents and chil- 
dren to have been provided against first because that 
is most abhorrent to us. If we will stop and con- 
sider, however, we will see that the savages ' solution 
of the problem was better. If we reduce the indi- 
vidual, for purposes of consideration, to terms of 
germ plasm we will see that brother and sister both 
come from the same germ plasm stock, while parent 
and child come from stock that is not identical. 
The child is only one quarter germ plasm stock 
of either parent, while the one quarter from the 
other parent was stock that the parent in question 
found suitable to mate with in the production of 
the child. Union between brother and sister is 
therefore more potent for any harm that may fol- 
low too close inbreeding than union of parent and 
child. 

These illustrations are sufficient I think to show 
how progress has had to follow the course of trial 
and error. How it has had therefore to be a slow 
and painful process of overcoming the drag back 
of an inherent inertia, sometimes succeeding, some- 
times being led into sterile byways. This drag back, 
this inertia, call it what you will, indolence, super- 
stition, ignorance, custom or what not, is in its va- 
rious nuances but a manifestation of the unconscious, 
the unconscious that can only wish. Eeality is al- 
ls The way in which this is accomplished would require a lengthy 
explanation to elucidate, which would be out of place here. 



THE UNCONSCIOUS 51 

ways knocking at the door, always demanding recog- 
nition but always being met by a tendency to fixa- 
tion which prevents progress. The conflict between 
the demands of reality for a more accurate adjust- 
ment is always being met by the drag back of a 
desire that prefers lack of exertion, the sense of 
protection and finality that comes by remaining in 
the region of the known rather than continuous ef- 
fort and constant projection into the great world 
of the unknown. 

I am tempted at this point to draw an analogy on 
the somatic side between reactions at the thalamic 
and at the cortical levels. 

It might be said that thalamic reactions are es- 
sentially emotional as contrasted to cortical reac- 
tions which are essentially intellectual. This how- 
ever is a harking back to the old faculty psychology. 
There are no such things as emotions; there is no 
entity to which we can apply the term intellect. 
The human being is an organism, a biological unit, 
reacting to certain situations and many of these 
reactions are expressed at the psychological level. 
A mental state so resulting is a whole which may 
present several aspects: a feeling aspect, an intel- 
lectual aspect, or what not. But these several as- 
pects are not things any more than the face of a 
crystal is a thing. The face of a crystal is a plane 
surface and therefore, has only length and breadth 
but no thickness. It is but an aspect and not a 
thing in itself. As the crystal may be turned about 
and viewed from any side, so a mental state may be 



52 CHAEACTER FORMATION 

viewed from its intellectual or its emotional aspect. 

The characteristics of emotions are more especially 
that they represent, at the psychological level, bod- 
ily states resulting by a contact of the organism with 
problems of integration. They represent the end 
results of the several tendencies of the different 
parts of the body in what has been termed the cce- 
nesthesis, which is the psychic feeling tone mediated 
by the afferent currents from the receptors located 
in the several organs, the proprieceptors of Sher- 
rington. Intellectual states, on the contrary, are 
more removed from the immediate states of the body 
and deal with relations. Mental states on their in- 
tellectual side are essentially relational in character, 
deal with the problem of adjustment, and are 
mediated by the information of the nature of the 
environment delivered to the psyche, so to speak, 
by the organs of special sense, the distance recep- 
tors, or again to use a term of Sherrington's, the 
exteroceptors. 

The contrast is well shown by the results of a 
study of sensory disturbances at the thalamic and 
the cortical levels. ^^ To stimulation by extremes of 
heat and cold a thalamic patient ^^ responds by '^Oh, 
something has caught me"; *^ something is forcing 
its way through me, it has got hold of me, it is pinch- 

17 Henry Head and Gordon Holmes: Sensory Disturbances from 
Cerebral Lesions, Brain, 1911. 

18 By "thalamic patient" is meant a patient in whom a lesion 
has cut off the thalamus from cortical control by destroying the 
cortico-thalamic paths but which, has left the essential organ of the 
thalamus intact. 



THE UNCONSCIOUS 53 

ing me." Another patient responds to a touch by 
'^I feel you touch me, but I can't tell where it is; 
the touch oozes all through my hand.'' A weight 
resting on the hand may not be recognised, but at 
the moment it is placed there or at the moment it 
is taken away the patient appreciates that ^* some- 
thing has happened." 

The characteristic responses to sensory stimuli 
when the cortex is involved are quite different. 
Usually the patient says that the stimulus is *4ess 
plain." The relational element in sensation is what 
is most disturbed, however, in cortical lesions and 
so the patient has ^*no idea" of shape, form, or 
relative size and weight of the test-object. This 
is especially shown with the Graham-Brown sesthe- 
siometer. Points are projected, in this instrument, 
from a smooth surface until the patient appreciates 
roughness when it is passed over the skin. With 
cortical lesions the threshold for roughness, deter- 
mined in this way, is the same in both hands. On 
the affected side, nevertheless, the patient is quite 
unable to correlate his sensations in appreciating 
texture. Cotton, silk, and stamped velvet cannot be 
differentiated. 

Just as the cortex is a better, a more exact tool 
for cutting into the facts of reality, so the intel- 
lectual attack upon reality is more effective than 
the plain, uncontrolled feelings. Just, however, as 
the greatest efficiency is obtained in the brain when 
the cortico-thalamic fibres, which are the avenue for 
the cortical control of the activity of the thalamus, 



54 CHARACTER FORMATION 

are intact, so in the mind the best results come by 
the feelings, which are ever wishing, being subordi- 
nated to an intelligence that examines, compares, re- 
lates.i^ 

The content of the fore-conscious is also uncon- 
scious if we use that term solely in its etymological 
sense. The multiplication table which every one 
knows but does not know that he knows until his 
attention is focused on that knowledge was uncon- 
scious, that is not-conscious, and furthermore we 
cannot say how such knowledge exists in our minds 
when it is not illuminated by attention. The only 
adequate reason we have for saying that it exists 
in the form of ideas is that we always find it in that 
form when we come to consciously think of it. The 
assumption that this possibility of knowledge exists 
in the form of ideas is only an hypothesis. 

The difference between the fore-conscious and the 
unconscious is therefore, from this point of view, 
only that the material of the fore-conscious is ac- 
cessible, it is relatively easy to bring it to conscious- 
ness, there are no material resistances to its be- 
coming conscious, and furthermore it is relatively 

19 We might carry the correlation with the physical still further 
particularly on the emotional side of consciousness by way of the 
sympathetic and autonomic nervous systems and the internal se- 
cretions, while the whole matter from the point of view of the 
neuroses is more generally covered by Adler in his "Minder- 
wertigkeit der Organe," and "Ueber den Nervosen Charakter." Ad- 
ler believes that the picture of the neurosis grows out of an effort 
to make good certain inherent deficiencies, the results of actual or- 
ganic defects, and that the effort produces an over-compensation 
which is at the basis of the morbid phenomena. 



THE UNCONSCIOUS 55 

accessible to the individual himself. The uncon- 
scious, on the other hand, is inaccessible alike to the 
patient and to others and any attempt to get at its 
content is met by more or less strong resistances. 
When we find the unconscious material, we are no 
more able to say, than in the case of the fore-con- 
scious, that it has been existing in the form of ideas. 
We only know by the method of interpretation. 
Certain conduct can only reach its explanation by 
assuming that such and such material — ideas — ac- 
count for it. 

A still more radical difference between the fore- 
conscious and unconscious than that of accessibility 
is the difference in the character of the ideas that 
make their way finally into consciousness from these 
two regions. The ideas of the fore-conscious when 
they become conscious are perfectly familiar. The 
multiplication table is the same old multiplication 
table we have always known. The ideas, however, 
that emerge from the region of the unconscious are 
not recognised. They not infrequently come with a 
distinct feeling of strangeness — of not-at-homeness. 
They have distinctly the character of invaders, of 
being in a strange, uncongenial environment. Their 
meaning, their value is not given. If analysed they 
will be found to have meanings altogether different 
from what they appear to have. Under a fear a 
wish will be found hidden, the idea of a ruler will 
be found to hide the image of the father, right and 
left may mean right and wrong, etc. In other words 
they are highly symbolic. 



56 CHARACTER FORMATION 

The understanding of the reason for this sym- 
bolism (see chap. V) is at the basis of the under- 
standing of the nature of the unconscious. The 
conflict which we have described is a conflict between 
desire and reality — between the pleasure motive 
(Lustprinzip) and the reality motive (Eealitats- 
prinzip) of conduct.^^ Now the pleasure motive is 
essentially, as we have seen, emotional as opposed 
to the intellectual nature of the reality of motive, and 
while matters intellectual are capable of relatively 
clear formulation both in words and in thought, 
matters emotional are not. We have not, even yet, 
evolved a language of the emotions which enables 
us to define them in terms of unequivocal meaning. 
We can feel, but we cannot put our feelings into 
words. And so when these feelings, which are the 
reverberations of past experiences, come to attempt 
to find expression in clear consciousness they must 
needs do so symbolically ^^ for clear consciousness 
implies a situation intellectually controlled. 

In the conflict between the pleasure and the re- 
ality principles which I have given instances of in 
primitive man, and which is repeated in the devel- 
opment of the individual, it will be evident that man 
is a feeling being before he is a thinking being. The 
intellect as we know it, is man's latest and most per- 
fect instrument which he has developed for cutting 

20 Freud, S. : Formulierungen ueber die zwei Principien des 
psychisclien Gescheliens. Jahrbuch fur psychoanaJyt. u. psychopath. 
Forschungen, III. 

21 The question of repression is purposely omitted here. 



THE UNCONSCIOUS 57 

into the mysteries of nature. How mnch more ac- 
curate its information is can be seen by the example 
of the answers given by the thalamic patient, already 
quoted. The conflicts in the past then have been 
conflicts in which this vague feeling content of con- 
sciousness predominated. In fact it can never be 
too strongly insisted upon that the so-called recol- 
lections that psychoanalysis brings out of early in- 
fancy may not be recollections in the true sense of 
that term at all. The formulation which the patient 
gives them is probably much more definite and clear 
cut than was the experience itself. The experiences 
of the child and of primitive man are overwhelm- 
ingly affective in character, they are trends only 
which probably are not expressed clearly in con- 
sciousness at all and when analysis draws the pa- 
tient back to these situations the clearness with 
which they are expressed on the ideational side may 
very probably be in part an artefact, at least to the 
extent to which the emotional experiences of the un- 
conscious are expressed in the language of the con- 
scious. Not that the facts as testified to were not 
experienced but the feeling experiences of the child 
are translated into the conceptual symbolism of the 
adult consciousness. 

How vague these reverberations may be and how 
impossible of formulation we occasionally experience 
when we revisit the place in which we spent our 
childhood days. For a moment, but for a moment 
only, we may get, as we stand in some familiar spot 
a vague, fleeting feeling as if we felt as we used to 



58 CHARACTER FORMATION 

feel when years ago as a child. But the feeling is 
gone almost as soon as felt and if it returns it is 
only to go again as quickly. 

The difficulty of getting things back as they were 
is not alone due to their inaccessibility or to their 
essentially affective character, but to a still further 
qualitative difference which is fundamental. Any 
particular act, at any particular moment of life, is 
an end result : It is made possible in the particular 
form it takes because of all that has gone before. 
Bergson ^^ very well states it when he says : ** What 
are we, in fact, what is our character , if not the con- 
densation of the history that we have lived from our 
birth — nay, even before our birth, since we bring 
with us prenatal dispositions? Doubtless we think 
with only a small part of our past, but it is with 
our entire past, including the original bent of our 
soul, that we desire, will and act." Our past con- 
flicts, therefore, with their affective reverberations 
can never be recalled or relived; they have gone 
to form the very fibre of our being as w^e noiv are ; 
they have been lived past and lived through. The 
fore-conscious, while it might as well be conscious, 
might also as w^ell be present. The unconscious is 
our historical past. 

The fore-conscious is only that part of conscious- 
ness which for the time being is out of the focus of 
attention. It is a part of the present of conscious- 
ness, that is, the matter now being dealt with. As 
soon as this material of the now of consciousness is 

22/6tU, p. 5. 



THE UNCONSCIOUS 59 

put into the past by being used as material in our 
growth, as soon as it takes its place in the path of 
our development by affording a resting place for 
further superstructures, then it enters into our his- 
torical past and as it recedes in the path of progress 
it partakes more and more of the nature of the un- 
conscious. 

The unconscious then is like the tail of a kite. 
While it drags down and holds back it nevertheless 
steadies its flight and at once prevents it from dash- 
ing itself to pieces by a sudden dart downwards and 
makes it possible for it to reach greater heights. 

This quality of the unconscious which makes it 
impossible that it should ever be exactly recalled, 
ever be relived as it was before, because the person 
in which it exists is a different person because of 
the part which that very unconscious has taken in 
his development; this quality again makes it neces- 
sary that w^hen it seeks expression in consciousness 
that that expression should be symbolic. The vague 
feeling trends have to be translated into the lan- 
guage of the individual as he then exists. 

The unconscious, then, as our historical past, is 
the path by which we have come. It represents re- 
sistances overcome, dangers avoided. This path 
though is a psychological path, it represents events 
at the psychological level and not at the neurological 
level, as some have claimed. The essential thing 
in the development of the personality is to forge 
ahead on the *^ straight and narrow path," slowly 
perhaps, but surely, consistently, constructively. 



60 CHAHACTER FORMATION 

At each point along the path we are in danger of be- 
ing side-tracked or of tarrying too long. We may 
be side-tracked by an unfortunate environment, if 
our energies flag we are threatened with fixation. 
Both of these dangers may be passed, but in later 
life, if for any reason introversion and regression 
take place, these old ways may become re-animated 
and determine the special way in which the introver- 
sion shall manifest itself in the symptoms. 

This concept enables us to see how often it is not 
possible to get a complete explanation of conduct 
from any amount of analysis of the individual. 
Many reactions, especially in praecox, are so primi- 
tive in type that we must seek their explanation, not 
in the individual consciousness, but in the race con- 
sciousness, and that by the comparative method. 
Just as many customs, for example religious cere- 
monials, must be explained by a study of the de- 
velopment of the customs through the ages and the 
comparison with them of similar customs of other 
peoples, so many of the reactions of the mentally 
diseased can only reach their full explanation when 
we have studied the mind in its stages of develop- 
ment in the race and see the analogies with savage 
and infantile ways of thinking. 

^^The route we pursue in time is strewn with the 
remains of all that we began to be, of all that we 
might have become." ^^ 

There is, as we might expect, a large borderland 
between conduct wholly determined by conscious mo- 

23Bergson: Ibid., p. 100. 



THE UNCONSCIOUS 61 

tives and conduct controlled by unconscious motives. 
This is the region which has been so splendidly 
studied by Freud in his ^'Psychopathology of 
Everyday Life.''^^ In this region conduct is de- 
fective. The slips of the tongue, mistakes, forget- 
tings, erroneously carried out actions and the thou- 
sand and one little defects in our daily conduct show 
us a region from which the Lustprinzip has not 
quite relinquished its hold and in which the Eealitats- 
prinzip has not yet become quite fully efficient. The 
actual determination to act seems to set aglow these 
other possible actions and occasionally one glows 
brightly enough to lead the action along its path. 
It is as if in our living we were surrounded by a 
haze of possibilities and that this or that might be- 
come an actuality by a very little change in the con- 
ditions. 

Action controlled by the unconscious may be of 
little importance, as a slip of the tongue, or may 
lead to severe crippling of the individual by the 
development of a neurosis or a psychosis. Such 
conduct, which, because of its symbolic character is 
quite as strange and incapable of being understood 
by the patient as by an onlooker, may be looked at 
from the teleological standpoint as a defence reac- 
tion against a recognition of motives that would be 
painful or as the persistence of modes of reaction — 
vestigial mechanisms — which have been discarded — 
repressed — in the course of development. 

24 Trans, by Brill. The Macmillan Co., New York, 1914. 



CHAPTER lY 
THE CONFLICT 

Change of any sort implies the concept of motion. 
This is true not only of inorganic masses but equally 
of biological processes such as growth, development, 
evolution. Motion implies overcoming resistance and 
this in turn implies the concepts of action and reac- 
tion. Action and reaction are equal and in opposite 
directions. From this law is deducible ambivalency, 
the conflict, and repression. Motion meets resist- 
ance in the opposite direction (ambivalency), the 
conjunction of two forces striving in opposite direc- 
tions (the conflict), one succeeds in dominating the 
other (repression). 

These terms then are seen to be only new words 
to express old concepts, only the old concepts are 
being applied to a different order of experiences, 
higher we will call them if the application works 
(the pragmatic test). Those at all familiar with 
psychoanalytic concepts will know that the opposing 
forces of the conflict are, in psychological terms, the 
conscious and the unconscious. 

The relationship of conscious and unconscious is 
the relationship of actual situations to the historical 
past of the psyche. The psyche like the body has 

62 



THE CONFLICT 63 

its embryology and its comparative anatomy, and 
just as the reflex is a bit of experience woven into 
the structure of the organism so are psychological 
experiences, which are frequently repeated in the his- 
tory of the race, preserved in the unconscious. It is 
again the relation of the stimulus to the body stimu- 
lated. The stimulus is any change in surrounding 
conditions: the body stimulated, represented at the 
psychological level by the unconscious, is that whole 
complex of organised reactions which represents the 
psychological history of the organism and which 
as it meets the stimulus brings all of its tendencies 
to bear in the present moment, which no sooner lived 
is itself added to the past to become a new vantage 
ground upon which the future may build. 

From still another point of view the stimulus is 
reality knocking at the door for recognition. The 
endless flux of outside changes each demands an an- 
swering change of like degree within. This balanced 
progress of adjustment makes up the moving equi- 
librium which constitutes the flow of life itself. Con- 
flict is at the very root and source of life, it is the 
very stuff out of which life is made, and the neces- 
sary pre-condition of progress. 

If conflict is so necessary it then becomes of su- 
preme importance to inquire what happens as a re- 
sult of conflict; How does the conflict resolve itself? 
In approaching this question we can get some help 
by the use of analogies taken from the physical world 
— we will then be able to see how the laws that gov- 
ern such analogous situations may be differently ex- 



64 CHARACTER FORMATION 

pressed aud made applicable in the realm of the 
psyche. 

The broadest expression of the action of the law 
that I have intimated exists, is known as the theorem 
of Le Chatelier ^ which stated briefly is to the effect 
that **a system tends to change so as to minimise 
an external disturbance. ' ' A series of examples will 
make this clear. 

If an electric current is passed through a solution 
there is a tendency to the formation of a counter 
current which thus reduces the electrical stress. 
Suspended particles in a liquid are caused, by a dif- 
ference in potential, to move in the direction that 
reduces the electrical stress. Photo-sensitive sub- 
stances tend to change in a way to eliminate the 
strain caused by the light. When the wind blows 
against a tree the boughs bend so as to spill it. Ani- 
mals in a cold climate develop thick coats of fur so 
as to prevent the radiation of heat. Desert plants 
are very hairy. By this means the circulation of air 
and consequently the rate of evaporation is impeded. 
The submerged leaves of aquatic plants do not de- 
velop the supporting framework of the aerial leaves. 
An irritant in the eye is washed out by a flow of 
tears, in the gastro-enteric tract by vomiting and 
purging. A serious shortage of men to do a certain 

1 Bancroft, W. D.: A Universal Law: In this, Professor Ban- 
croft's presidential address to the American Chemical Society, he 
gives many illustrations of Le Chatelier's theorem. I have drawn 
freely from these illustrations and beg to acknowledge my indebted- 



THE CONFLICT 65 

kind of work causes a rise in wages and a flow of men 
to that point to fill the position thus lessening the ten- 
sion of the industrial situation. Plants and trees 
that have been seriously injured often flower, thus 
showing a tendency to limit the destructive effects 
of the injury. 

Innumerable examples might be given of this law 
— ^let us see some of its more immediate applications 
to man and especially at the psychological level. 
Hunger brings about those activities necessary for 
the procurement of food and the consequent ap- 
peasement of the craving. The same may be said 
of sex hunger. Kempf ^ formulates the law in this 
way: **A motive, no matter at what conscious, sub- 
conscious, or unconscious level of the personality it 
may be active, after its genesis, tends to express it- 
self by forcing into consciousness sensations of ex- 
ogenous origin or sensory images of endogenous 
origin which have the function of generating coun- 
ter, neutralising reactions.'' 

The desire for money prompts those activities 
which lead to its acquisition and so brings about a 
state of affairs that leads to satisfaction by supply- 
ing the stimuli for generating neutralising reactions, 
thus relieving the stress in the system. Fear 
prompts to run away and get into an environment 
that will give the feeling of safety. Anger prompts 
the killing or injuring of an enemy. On a higher 

2 Kempf, E. J.: Some Studies in the Psychopathology of Acute 
Dissociation of the Personality. Tlie Psychoanalytic Review, Vol. 
II, No. 4, Oct., 1915. 



66 CHARACTER FORMATION 

level are all those highly sublimated forms of con- 
duct which express the creative energy in artistic, 
literary, and scientific productions. 

It is important to realise, at this point, that the 
activities of the organism that are brought about to 
neutralise desires may effect an adequate and ef- 
ficient relation with reality or they may not. The 
person who desires money and proceeds to establish 
himself in business and earn it has brought about 
an efficient relating of himself to his environment, 
but the person who wants money and does nothing 
about it but indulge in day dreams of what he would 
do if he had it is decidedly inefficient in his relation 
to his conflict. Both, however, have dealt with the 
conflict by bringing about conditions that tend to 
neutralise the desire, tend to reduce the disturbance 
in the system brought about by the unsatisfied desire, 
one has reacted effectively, the other has reacted in 
a pathological way. In one case there was an effi- 
cient reaction to the demands of reality, in the other 
there was the building up of a world of phantasy. 

If conflict, of which I have already given many il- 
lustrations in various realms of activity even out- 
side of the field of biology, is so universal we should 
be able to find evidences of it in the form of struc- 
tures and institutions which have received their 
forms as a result of its influences. 

The essential nature of a conflict is the existence 
of two opposing forces. As already indicated this 
is expressed in the psychic sphere by the demands 
of reality upon the accumulated experiences of the 



THE CONFLICT 67 

individual represented in the unconscious. It is 
further exemplified in the psyche by the principle of 
ambivalency and ambitendency which has been set 
forth by Bleuler.^ As he puts it, ambivalency 
* 'gives to the same idea two contrary feeling tones 
and invests the same thought simultaneously with 
both a positive and a negative character," while am- 
bitendency ' ' sets free with every tendency a counter 
tendency. ' ' 

This means that in the psyche the idea which lies 
closest to another idea is its opposite, as for example 
the idea that lies closest to long is short: to hot is 
cold: to white is black: to thick is thin: to fat is 
lean: to good is bad, etc., etc. The same principle 
is involved also in actions. Bleuler uses these prin- 
ciples to explain the phenomena of negativism and 
calls attention to the character of reactions not only 
among the mentally diseased in which the opposite 
tendency is carried out, as for example, the frequent 
type of reaction by closing the eyes tightly when an 
attempt is made to examine the pupils or closing the 
lips tightly when asked to put out the tongue, but 
also to the obstinacy so frequently observed in chil- 
dren and in many other types. 

This contrary tendency is engrafted in the very 
nature of things and is perhaps most prominently in 
evidence in the structure and functions of the body 
in the antagonism between the autonomic and sym- 
pathetic nervous systems. Eppinger and Hess in 

3 The Theory of Schizophrenic Negativism. Nerv. and Ment. Dis. 
Monograph Series, No. 11. 



68 CHARACTER FORMATION 

a recent monograpli^ have expressed it by saying 
'* every visceral organ is supplied by sympathetic 
fibres, which work antagonistically to the autonomic. 

'^ Hence it may be stated that the normal progress 
of functioning of visceral organs is a well regulated 
interaction between two contrary acting forces/' 

The viscera are not in a state of flaccid inactivity 
until called upon to respond to some stimulus, but 
in a state of balanced contrary innervation which 
makes response more prompt and easy in either di- 
rection. Like the muscles of an athlete they are in 
a state of tension — tonus — capable of responding on 
the instant to demands of either offence or defence. 

It would be natural to suppose that so fundamental 
a distinction would find its expression in forms of 
speech, in language. Bain says,^ ^^The essential 
relativity of all knowledge, thought or consciousness 
cannot but show itself in language. If everything 
that we can know is viewed as a transition from 
something else, every experience must have two 
sides ; and every name must have a double meaning, 
or else for every meaning there must be two names." 

Abel studied early forms of words ^ and found this 
principle illustrated. Many of the old words are 
combinations of opposites such as altjung ( = old- 
young), fernnah ( — far-near), ausserinnen ( = out- 
in), bindentrennen ( = bind-separate) which came 

4 Vagotonia. Nerv. and Ment. Dis. Monograph Series, No. 20. 
c "Logic." 

6 Karl Abel : Ueber der Gegensinn der Urworte. Ref erat by Freud 
in Jahrhuch f. Psychanalytische u. Psychopath. Forschungen, 1910. 



THE CONFLICT 69 

to mean respectively young, near, in, to bind up. It 
is,'ToFexample, as if in the case of the word altjung 
( = old-young) the question at issue was the age and 
it was only in a later stage of development that sepa- 
rate terms old and young could develop as repre- 
senting the opposite extremes of age. The same 
may be said of the other words. 

Abel mentions a number of English words of the 
same sort, such as without, which is a combination of 
mit (with), and ohne (without). Mit he says origi- 
nally meant with (mit) and also without (ohne). 

Bleuler ^ mentions this same tendency in children 
who use the same expressions for both positive and 
negative ideas as tii tu for Tiire zu (door to) for 
both open and close the door and zuletzt (last) for 
zuerst (first). 

This principle is involved in some of the oldest 
of human documents. It is exemplified in the Yih 
system of the Chinese as set forth in the Yih King, 
one of the most ancient of human documents.^ '^He 
who understands the yih is supposed to possess the 
key to the riddle of the universe. 

**The yih is capable of representing all combina- 
tions of existence. The elements of the yih, yang 
the positive principle and yin the negative principle, 
stand for the elements of being. Yang means 
^bright' and yin, ^dark.' Yang is the principle of 
heaven ; yin, the principle of the earth. Yang is the 

7 Log. cit. 

8 Paul Carus, "Chinese Thought," Open Court Pub. Co., Chicago, 
1907. 



70 CHAEACTER FORMATION 

sun, yin is the moon. Yang, is masculine and active ; 
yin is feminine and passive. The former is motion ; 
the latter is rest. Yang is strong, rigid, lord-like; 
yin is mild, pliable, submissive, wife-like. The strug- 
gle between, and the different mixture of, these two 
elementary contrasts, condition all the differences 
that prevail, the state of the elements, the nature of 
things, and also the character of the various person- 
alities as well as the destinies of human beings." 
We probably have a similar system in the Urim and 
Thummim of the Hebrews.^ 

There might be mentioned as additional illustra- 
tions, which are none the less important because 
obvious, the contraries good-bad, heaven-hell, angel- 
devil, white-black, right-wrong. Such oppositions 
stand at the very foundations of morality and re- 
ligion. 

Thus the way of the conflict is a universal way in 
which force manifests itself. Action and reaction 
(the conflict) are equal and in opposite directions 
(ambivalency). This concept would imply a state 
of rest but in the living being the conflict is the ex- 
pression of the moving equilibrium established be- 
tween the individual and its environment. The liv- 
ing being starts in the world as a single cell capable 
of varying degrees of development depending upon 
the living form it represents in embryo. This cell 
is, so to speak, a nucleus of tendencies introduced 
into a world of matter and energy and as soon as 

9 Paul Carus, "The Oracle of Yahveh," Open Court Pub. Co., 
Chicago, 1911. 



THE CONFLICT 71 

these tendencies begin to manifest themselves, as 
soon as they begin to burgeon forth and seek to de- 
velop they inevitably come in conflict with the world 
about. These tendencies, representing in their final 
activities the set of the organism, come in conflict 
with the world about. At the psychological level the 
conflict is represented by the two terms, the uncon- 
scious and the conscious, that is, by what these two 
terms represent, the unconscious representing the in- 
herent and acquired tendencies, the conscious repre- 
senting the moment when they come into active touch 
with reality in an effort to effect an adjustment. 

Looked at from another angle the conflict is be- 
tween the pleasure-pain principle or motive and the 
reality principle or motive. The pleasure-pain mo- 
tive is the unconscious, the tendencies of the organ- 
ism as they exist at the moment of active contact 
with reality and which offer a resistance to the re- 
adjustment demanded by reality. This resistance 
expressed in psychological terms is a desire or wish 
— a wish not to be overcome by the necessity, being 
forced upon it by reality, of re-adjustment. 

The conflict never results in a draw, on the con- 
trary, first one of the opposing forces gains the as- 
cendant, the other is for the time being worsted (re- 
pression), then the other is successful, and so this 
process goes on about a central point, like the needle 
of a tangent galvanometer, constantly in motion 
swinging first to one side then to the other of the 
zero mark on the scale, but never coming to rest — a 
moving equilibrium. 



72 CHARACTER FORMATION 

In the course of life one or the other tendency may 
dominate at any particular time — the balance may 
be on one or the other side of the ledger, in favour 
of life or of death. For those who live the balance 
is, on the whole, in favour of life although there 
may be numerous swings of the needle to the op- 
posite side, while for those who die, in spite of occa- 
sional balances in their favour, the general average is 
against them. The needle, too, may swing far or 
just barely past the zero mark — the individual may 
be abundantly well and highly efficient, or on the 
contrary, just able to keep the balance slightly in his 
favour. 

Negativism is an example at the psychological level 
of the condition of affairs when the balance stands 
against the individual. The slight attacks of ob- 
stinacy of the child are usual and so considered 
quite within the limits of the normal,^^ the nega- 
tivism of the schizophrenic has quite passed those 
bounds and is to be considered as pathological. In 
suicide we see the complete negation of life itself — 
the balance is overwhelmingly against the individual. 
In all of these conditions, while the negativism is in 
the ascendant the other factor of the conflict is re- 
pressed. 

Many other examples come easily to us. The man 
who robs his friend, and the student who has a task 
to do but deliberately neglects it to go fishing, have 
both temporarily repressed their better instincts. 

10 In my opinion "normal" can have no other meaning than 
"usual." The two terms are interchangeable. 



THE CONFLICT 73 

The course of conduct in both instances, however, 
might have been different if the repression had been 
of the opposite factor in the conflict. In that case 
the one man would have remained honest and the 
other would have performed his task. 

THE LIBIDO 

In all these examples of conflict it is evident that 
we have been using terms for forms of energy. Con- 
flict is the tool which energy uses to pry itself loose 
from old moorings and gain expression at a higher 
level. It is the expression of energy in the throes 
of creation — creative energy — libido.^^ To illus- 
trate: The hungry man is in conflict with his de- 
sire for food. The tendency, as we have seen, is to 
bring about actions which will lead to sensations 
that will neutralise the cravings. When this has 
been done, the hunger satisfied, then the man is free 
from conflict at that level, the libido is free to trans- 
fer the field of battle to a higher level; he can now 
use his energies in writing a poem, performing a 
surgical operation, organising a social campaign. 
Conflict has not been done away with as such, it has 
only been raised to a higher level, and this is a move- 
ment in the direction both of integration and adjust- 
ment as already illustrated (Chapter II), 

We may say that the libido is always striving to 
attain higher levels of adjustment. Such an expres- 

11 1 am conscious of the objections to this term but it seems to 
be too well grounded in use to discard. Then, too, the important 
thing is the concept and not the name. 



74 CHAKACTER FORMATION 

sion is both teleological and anthropomorphic and 
as such open to all sorts of objections. We have 
come to believe, however, that the different stages 
of evolution represent a progress upward and that 
we also are on the upward path. Although such 
expressions may be objected to it is perhaps well to 
consider Schopenhauer's words, in this connection, 
when he says: ^^The foundation on which all our 
knowledge and science rests is the inexplicable. To 
this all explanations lead, be the intermediate stages 
few or many; as in ocean soundings, the lead must 
always touch the bottom at last in deep seas and 
shallow alike.'' 

If the conflict is decided with the balance in favour 
of the individual a feeling of pleasure, satisfaction, 
success results ; if on the other side the result is pain, 
suffering, dissatisfaction. The hungry man who 
eats is gratified, if he is unable to obtain food he is 
in distress. When the conflict wavers, when there 
is no unqualified success of either antagonist, the 
state of mind is one of doubt, indecision and uncer- 
tainty, first one solution seeming the better and then 
the opposite replacing it. Strong antipathic feel- 
ings such as hate and disgust are efforts at prying 
the energy free from lower levels so that the plane 
of conflict may be carried higher. The man who 
expresses abhorrence for a certain act is much nearer 
the possibility of such an act himself than is he who 
can view it undisturbed and with a judicial attitude 
of mind, he therefore must summon all his reserves 
to escape it. 



THE CONFLICT 75 

The transfer of the conflict from a lower to a 
higher plane may or may not mean any real gain ac- 
cording to our philosophy. There certainly has been 
no putting aside of the possibility of suffering pain 
or permanent addition to the capacity for pleasure. 
Every increase in the sensitiveness to pain means a 
corresponding increase in the capacity for pleasure, 
every increase in the capacity for pleasure means a 
corresponding capacity for suffering. Development 
of the capacity for pleasure or for pain, for con- 
structiveness or for destructiveness, for good or for 
bad, and all the other pairs of contraries, must needs 
go together. Increase in the strength of one of the 
pair implies a corresponding and equal increase in 
the strength of the other. Development proceeds, 
to use an expression of Benett's ^^ by the parallel 
growth of opposite tendencies. He says *^ there are 
at least no positive grounds for an expectation that 
in the future, any more than in the past, either term 
in the algedonic equation will gain permanently on 
the other." Perhaps the best that can be done is as 
a result of a realisation that the only hope of ful- 
filment comes by getting into the stream of becom- 
ing and submitting to the demands for activity it 
makes upon us. 

12 W. Benett: "The Ethical Aspects of Evolution Regarded as the 
Parallel Growth of Opposite Tendencies." Oxford, 1908. 



CHAPTEE V 
SYMBOLISM 

"Facts are only stopping-places on the way to new ideas." 

— Dion Clayton Calthrop. 

"Real definitions are a standing difficulty for all who have to deal 
with them, whether as logicians or as scientists, and it is no wonder 
that dialectical philosophers fight very shy of them, prefer to 
manipulate their verbal imitations, and count themselves happy if 
they can get an analysis of the acquired meaning of a word to pass 
muster instead of a troublesome investigation of the behaviour of a 
thing." — F. C. S. Schiller: "Studies in Humanism." 

Symbolism is commonly thought of as a form of 
artistic expression — as belonging in the domains of 
religion, art, and poetry. The most casual examina- 
tion of expressions in current use will, however, show 
that it is by no means exceptional.^ The oak sug- 
gests sturdiness, ruggedness and strength of char- 
acter and has limbs, trunk and a heart. And so we 
speak of persons of rugged character, dependability 
and strength of purpose as having hearts of oak. 
The foliage of spring symbolises inexperience (ver- 
dancy), that of fall, age (the sear and yellow leaf). 
The stone is hard, flint a very hard stone is often 
used to symbolise a character trait — ^heart of flint. 

1 These illustrations are taken, for the most part, from the chap- 
ter "Symbolism in Sanity and Insanity" in Burr's "Handbook of 
Psychology and Mental Disease." 

76 



SYMBOLISM 77 

The river and the cave have a month, the volcano 
vomits lava, and the earth clothes itself in green. 
There are the lap, the bosom, and the womb of na- 
ture, the bowels of the earth. The ship has a nose, 
the cliff a face, the hill a brow: a church, a proces- 
sion, a lake, have each a head. There are the neck 
of land, the jaws of an instrument, a chest of tools, 
the lip of scorn, the finger of destiny. Pitchers have 
ears, the sea arms, the waves a voice, the mountain 
a foot, the comet a head and tail, the potato eyes. 
Plumbers use male and female fittings, nipples and 
elbows. Sympathy has breadth, affection depth, 
folly height. Sarcasm is pointed, duty calls, happi- 
ness reigns. Dispositions are sweet or sour, a bad 
joke leaves a bitter taste, one scents trouble. A law 
is interpreted in a way to emasculate it, its virility 
is lost. A question is burning, issues are living or 
dead. A colour is lively, gay, sombre, cold or warm, 
a temperament mercurial, a fact dry. An idea is 
brilliant, a thought striking, wit scorching, and rep- 
artee sparkling. Language is indeed a * ^fossil 
poetry. ' ' 

These illustrations are sufficiently numerous and 
varied to show that symbolism is by no means un- 
usual and exceptional but that it is both a common 
and a necessary mode of expression, in fact we shall 
see that, using the term in its broadest sense, it is 
universal. For what after all is a word but the 
symbol of an idea and an idea but the symbol of a 
thing. 

In order that the meaning of symbolism may be 



78 CHARACTER FORMATION 

understood, in the broad sense in wMch it is here 
used, it is essential to keep in mind the nature of the 
relation between the process of thinking and the 
forms which are used in expressing that process. 
The process is one of continuous unremitting change 
— the forms of expression are the results of efforts 
to catch the process in the very act of becoming, they 
are snap shots which try to fix the process in forms 
that can be read. The distinction between process 
and forms of expression is the distinction between 
dynamic and static. Concepts and the words used 
to express them, like a marine painting of the storm- 
tossed, wind-driven waves, lack the essential element 
of the process, motion. Forms of thought and lan- 
guage must fix, clot, coagulate the process in the very 
act of expression. Words, forms of expression, con- 
cepts are but rigid forms which are never fully equal 
to accurate expression. The ever changing, ever 
growing process which gives them birth is always 
straining at the limitations they impose and even 
though it may not change their outward form it con- 
stantly forces them to assume new meanings. 

This constant pressure upon the form by the ever 
swelling process contained within it produces a re- 
sult which is a compromise between the tendency to 
stability, conservatism of the form, and the constant 
tendency to change, the fluidity of the meaning. It is 
perhaps best shown in the varying changes of both 
form and meaning of words.^ For example : 

2 Language has been called by Jean Paul "a dictionary of faded 
metaphors." 



SYMBOLISM 79 

* ' The Holy Ghost is symbolised in Christianity by 
a Dove, and the Hebrew for dove is jonaJi. The 
jon of Jonah reappears in the English and French 
pigeon^ a word resolving into pi ja on, the ^Father of 
the Everlasting One.' The Celtic names for a pigeon 
are duhe, ^the brilliant orb,' and Mom, i.e., aJc el om, 
* Great Lord the Sun. ' At the Baptism of Christ the 
Heavens are said to have opened and a Dove or 
Pigeon to have descended to the words, *This is my 
beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.' Pi or pa, 
the Father, is the root of pity, peace, patience, and 
of the names Paul, Paulus, etc. The two syllables 
of Paul coalesce frequently into Pol, whence Pol- 
lock, PoLsoM, Polly, Poldi, etc., and innumerable 
place-names, such as Poldhu, or Baldhu, Polton 
and BoLTOiN-, Polpekro, and Belpur. Pol was a title 
of Baldur, the Apollo of Scandinavia, and Baldur 
seemingly once meant the ^enduring Ball' or the 
' enduring Baal. ' The Eastern Ball may be equated 
with the Druidic Beal, which, according to Celtic 
antiquaries, means ^the life of everything' or ^the 
source of all beings.' Pais, i.e., the * essence of the 
Father,' is the Greek for son, and paour,. again the 
'light of the Father,' is Celtic for son. Pa ur, 
the Father of Light, is the origin of power, which in 
French is puissance, the light or essence of Pa. The 
Celtic for spirit is poell, and poele is the French for 
stove; German, stuhe. Even to-day in Japan the 
domestic cooking-furnace is considered as a deity. 
Patriarch must originally have been pater-arch, and 
meant Great Father. The patron saint of Ireland 



80 CHARACTER FORMATION 

is presumably a corrupted form of Paterick, the 
Great Father, and the shamrock or clover leaf may 
be regarded as the threefold symbol of ac lover, the 
Great Lover. ' ' ^ 

We find the same thing with respect to concepts ; 
although the same form of word has continued to be 
used to express them the idea back of the word has 
continuously changed. Take for example the word 
^* mercury." The alchemists believed mercury to be 
contained in all metals, it was the metallic principle, 
and to its presence were attributed such properties 
as fusibility, malleability and lustre.^ 

We still use the word mercury, but what a multi- 
tude of changes in meaning has it been used to ex- 
press since the days of alchemy ! 

If we consider a complex concept such as modesty 
we find that not only has the meaning changed con- 
stantly but that the expression means different 
things to different peoples. From the almost or 
quite complete nakedness of certain savages to the 
complicated clothing of our present-day civilisation 
the change has been great indeed, while it is only 
necessary to mention that the Bakairi of Central 
Brazil although they have no sense of shame at 
nakedness are ashamed to eat in public.^ 

We can see this operation actually going on under 

3 Harold Bayley: "The Lost Language of Symbolism — An Inquiry 
into the Origin of Certain Letters, Words, Names, Fairy-Tales, 
Folklore and Mythologies." 2 Vols. T. B. Lippincott Company. 
1913. 

4H. Stanley Eedgrove: "Alchemy: Ancient and Modern." 
sHavelock Ellis: "Studies in the Psychology of Sex." Vol. II, 



SYMBOLISM 81 

onr very eyes in our courts of law, wMch are ever 
occupied with trying to fit actual living things into 
rigid, dead forms, to crowd human beings into the 
prescribed limits of set words and phrases: a task 
as impossible as that of the Danaides. Schroeder 
has interestingly shown the changes which legal in- 
terpretation has rung upon the concepts ** obscene" 
and ^^ freedom of the press." ^ 

These illustrations suffice to show that symbolism, 
still using the term in the broadest sense, is universal 
because grounded in the very necessities of the forms 
of expression themselves. The next inquiry is nat- 
urally into the various ways in which symbolism 
comes to expression — the principles which govern it, 
the laws which control its manifestations. 

The fundamental principle of symbolism is that 
anything may symbolise anything else and in a given 
instance the only way to find out the meaning of a 
symbol is to make inquiry of the subject expressing 
it. The psychologist cannot tell off hand what a 
given symbol may mean in a particular instance. It 
may mean one thing at one time and another thing 
at another time, it may mean one thing to one person 
and another thing to another person; it may or it 
may not have the usual significance. 

The next important principle is self evident. The 

The Evolution of Modesty. F. A. Davis Company, Philadelphia, 
1909. 

6 Theodore Schroeder: "'Obscene' Literature and Constitutional 
Law. A Forensic Defense of Freedom of the Press." New York, 
1911. 



82 CHARACTER FORMATION 

symbol must be chosen from the mental content. 
When one, so to speak, is looking about for an ap- 
propriate symbol he is limited in his choice to the 
content of his own mind. Perhaps no one who reads 
these pages would symbolise his thoughts in Sanskrit 
because probably they do not know that language. 
English symbols would be most frequently, although 
perhaps not exclusively used. 

Not only may a given symbol mean one thing one 
time and another thing another time, but the same 
symbol may be used by different persons in quite dif- 
ferent ways. If several persons will look at a ra- 
diator, for example, they will probably treat that 
radiator differently in their thoughts, depending on 
their previous experiences. One may be reminded 
of the rise of temperature in a fever, another may 
think of the steam and the steam call up an ocean 
voyage on a steamship with all the complex asso- 
ciations of that voyage, another may think of the 
warmth of friendship, another of efiSciency, as ex- 
pressing the work of the radiator, while still another 
may be reminded by the corrugations of the corru- 
gated paper about a book recently received from the 
publishers, its contents, etc. The possibilities are 
endless. 

And finally the manifestness of the symbolism is 
in direct proportion to the poverty of the appercep- 
tive mass and the consequent concreteness of expres- 
sion. Darwin records the instance "^ of a child, who, 
seeing a duck on the water, called it *^ quack." 

7 Cited by Beaurian : Ueber das Symbol und die psychisehen 



SYMBOLISM 83 

From this on lie called all flying things **qnack," 
birds, insects, especially honse flies and also fluids, 
water and wine. Finally when a son was shown him 
he called this also * ^ quack. ' ' * * Quack ' ' thus came to 
mean such different things as flies, wine, and coins. 
The word *^ quack" was used originally to express 
the duck on the water, so it comes to be applied to 
all flying things and to all liquids. When the word 
is extended to include coins it is not because of a con- 
ceptual generalisation, but as the result of an asso- 
ciative transference due to the figure of the eagle on 
the coin which is already known as *^ quack.'' Be- 
cause the field of perception of the child's conscious- 
ness is very narrow, all of the characteristics of an 
object are not fully apperceived so that single char- 
acteristics, partial perceptions, are possible and ap- 
pear in the perceptual complex while other charac- 
teristics are excluded. Thus the thinking tends to 
relative concreteness. 

This concrete way of thinking is further illus- 
trated^ by using a new name to express a certain 
characteristic of an object. Thus the Arab needs 
not less than 500 names for lion to express his differ- 
ent qualities, 200 names for snake, and 5,744 for 
camel. Similarly the Australian has one name for a 
dog's tail, another for a cow's tail, and still another 
for a sheep's tail," but no name for tail in general. 
* ^ All trees but no forest. ' ' 

Bedingungen fiir sein Entstelien beim Kinde. Int. Zeitschr. f. Arzt- 
liche Psychoan., Vol, I, p. 431. 
8 Cited by Beaurain, op. cit. 



84 CHARACTER FORMATION 

The logical function, the power of abstraction 
needs a long time for its development. The abstrac- 
tion of characters from objects is a difficult process 
and so adjectives are late in making their appearance 
in speech. In the language of the Tasmanians there 
are no adjectives,^ only substitutions by means of 
concrete ideas. They say ^^like a stone'' instead of 
using the adjective ^^hard," ^^like a foot" means 
^^long," **like a ball" or *4ike the moon" means 
round. 

As primitive man or the child develops and the 
apperceptive mass is constantly increased, as 
^^ quack" for example progressively fails to express 
all flying things, liquids, and coins because the mind 
has come to group these things upon the basis of 
similarities and differences to which the ^* quack" of 
the duck no longer applies, the forms of expression 
will either change or acquire new meanings, and if 
the latter the original reason for the expression 
will gradually slip out of consciousness, because it 
no longer corresponds to the way of thinking — it is 
no longer useful. We have already illustrated this 
process in the changes in form and meaning of words. 
It is well seen also in the gradual abridgement of 
ceremonials. Mr. Spencer ^^ traces obeisances as 
originating as signs of submission to a conqueror and 
developing along divergent lines until they acquire 
political and ecclesiastical significance. The earliest 

9 Cited by Beaurain, op. cit. 

10 Herbert Spencer: "Synthetic Philosophy." Principles of Soci- 
ology. Vol. II, Chap. VI, Obeisances. 



SYMBOLISM 85 

form was a full length prostration implying complete 
submission because complete defencelessness. This 
became successively abridged to kneeling with the 
head on the ground, kneeling on both knees. By 
successive abridgements there follow descent on one 
knee, then simply a bending of the knees, and lastly 
a simple nod of the head. This latter, a simple nod 
of the head, with a slight bending of the upper part 
of the body, persists in the Episcopal Church to-day 
when the name of Christ is mentioned. 

The following is an excellent example in the realm 
of magic. ^ ^ Even in its own development, however, 
magic contains some conditions of its own decline. 
Custom, whilst it maintains a practice, dispenses 
with its meaning, and slurs or corrupts the expres- 
sion of it. Professor Westermarck has shown how 
in Morocco the full rite to avert the evil-eye is to 
thrust forward the hand with the fingers outspread, 
and to say — ^Five in your eye.' But as this is too 
insulting for common use, you may instead casually 
mention the number ^ve ; or if even that is too plain, 
you may bring in the word Thursday, which happens 
to be the fifth day of the week. It is obvious that in 
this process there is great risk of forgetting the 
original meaning of the spell ; and when this happens 
we have complete retrogradation ; in which condition 
are the current superstitions about ^thirteen,' ^Fri- 
day,' * spilling the salt,' 'walking under the ladder,' 
for hardly a soul knows what they mean." ^^ 

11 Carveth Read : The Psychology of Magic. British Jour. Psych. 
Vol. VII, No. 2, September, 1914. 



86 CHARACTER FORMATION 

The persistence of old forms, the original uses of 
which have disappeared, is well seen in the evolution 
of the implements of primitive man. Many of the 
stone implements were fastened into handles by 
divers methods of lashing which tended to become 
fixed in more or less symmetrical patterns. As the 
stone spear points were replaced by bronze and dur- 
ing the evolution of the palstave, or socketed bronze 
celt from the flat bronze celt, the method of fastening 
also changed. But the old style of binding had ef- 
fected such firm associations that it was engraved 
as a pattern on the socket of the bronze head.^^ 

Haddon ^^ very well sums up the changes that take 
place in the life-history of pictorial symbols as fol- 
lows: 

*^ First, it is simply a representation of an object 
or a phenomenon, that is, a pictograph. Thus the 
zigzag was the mark or sign of lightning. 

* ^ Secondly, * the sign of the concrete grew to be the 
symbol of the abstract. The zigzag of lightning, for 
example, became the emblem of power, as in the 
thunder-bolts grasped by Jupiter; or it stood alone 
for the supreme God; and thus the sign developed 
into the ideograph. ' ^^ 

'* Thirdly, retrogression set in when new religions 
and new ideas had sapped the vitality of the old con- 

12 Alfred 0. Haddon: "Evolution in Art: As illustrated by the 
Life-Histories of Designs." Con. Sci. Se., New York, Chas. Scrib- 
ner's Sons, 1910. 

13 Op. cif. 

14 H. Colley March: "The Fylfot and the Futhorc Tir," Trans. 
Lancashire and Cheshire Ant. Soc, 1886. Cited by Haddon, op. cit. 



SYMBOLISM 87 

ceptions, and the ideograph came to have no more 
than a mystical meaning. A religious or sacred 
savour, so to speak, still clung about it, but it was 
not a living force within it ; the difference is as great 
as between the dried petals of a rose and the bloom- 
ing flower itself. *The zigzag, for instance, was no 
longer used as a symbol of the deity, but was applied 
auspiciously, or as we should say, for luck. ' ^^ 

*^The last stage is reached when a sign ceases to 
have even a mystical or auspicious significance, and 
is applied to an object as a merely ornamental 
device." 

SYMBOLISM AND THE UNCONSCIOUS 

I have already set forth in a former chapter ^^ the 
distinction between the fore-conscious and the un- 
conscious. As I have there stated, the fore-con- 
scious, while it might as well be conscious, might also 
as well be present. The unconscious is our historical 
past. 

Ideas of the fore-conscious when they do come into 
consciousness do so without resistance and are fully 
recognised at their true value. For example, if to- 
day is Tuesday, that fact until reinforced was too 
weak to come into consciousness, but when it does 
come makes no disturbance and is fully understood. 
It is the same with the symbolism. The symbols of 
the fore-conscious can be relatively easily read even 
when their meaning, from their statement simply, 

15 H. Colley March, op. cit. 

16 Chap. III. 



88 CHAKACTER FORMATION 

is not at once evident. A patient dreamed that she 
was in a boat upon a river going with the stream 
and went on to explain that the river was the great 
life-giving force — it was the river of life. Such 
ideas are ideas that might as well be conscious. 

Another subject dreamed of the death of an old 
lady living next door. The ojd lady was a surrogate 
for the dreamer's mother, who for many years had 
suffered from a psychosis. Here the symbolism com- 
pletely disguises the underlying idea from the 
dreamer. A great deal of energy is expended in 
bringing about this disguise and the idea, as a re- 
sult, is successfully kept out of consciousness. The 
dreamer had no idea what the dream meant and no 
amount of questioning could possibly have elicited 
any explanation. The type of symbolism, therefore, 
is different for those ideas that might as well be con- 
scious and those ideas, or rather trends, that are 
unconscious. 

The distinction here is the same as between the 
fore-conscious and the unconscious, but we will see 
that another element has entered. In the dream of 
being in a boat on the river of life the ideas come 
readily into consciousness, there are no resistances 
to be overcome, there is no force operating to prevent 
them from being realised. In the dream of the death 
of the old lady, however, it is quite different. This 
dream indicates a wish for the death of the mother. 
Here is an idea against which all the forces that have 
been developed by civilisation and culture rebel. 
Great energy is expended to prevent this idea from 



SYMBOLISM 89 

becoming conscious, and so the symbolism distorts 
and disguises it so completely that it was not recog- 
nised by the dreamer who, as a matter of fact told it 
laughingly and without the slightest suspicion of its 
real meaning. The disguise here is intended to con- 
ceal the idea from the subject and it is only by psy- 
choanalytic methods that we can reach an under- 
standing of its meaning, a meaning which was at 
once suggested by the fact that the dreamer's mother 
had been mentally invalided for years. This fact, 
coupled with what we know of the infantile attitude 
towards the parents, makes the meaning at once 
clear. 

The unconscious in its anti-social and unconven- 
tional tendencies can only express itself in conscious- 
ness under the form of a symbolism, which at the 
same time effectually disguises the real meaning. 
It is, again, infantile in origin and represents the 
pleasure-pain motive for conduct as against the 
reality motive that comes to play a part of ever in- 
creasing importance as we grow older, and, as a 
race, more civilised. The interplay of these two 
motives and the resulting compromise is the source 
of the symbolism and all such symbolism seems to be 
without meaning, or to have a meaning other than its 
real one, to the subject. 

Conscious thinking is a function which has as its 
object to cut into the facts of reality — to adapt the 
individual to his environment by such a knowledge 
of reality as will enable him to effectively orient 
himself towards the real. We all wish for certain 



90 CHARACTER FORMATION 

things. Primitive man and the child proceed, much 
more directly to the goal of their wishes than we do. 
If we want money, for example, the simplest way to 
get it is to take it. We have learned, however, that 
the existence of society demands that we can only 
take it in certain ways — as a reward for labour. If 
we attempt to get it otherwise we run counter to so- 
ciety, which proceeds to punish us accordingly, and 
so we learn to adapt ourselves to the necessities of 
the situation. The unconscious — the primitive and 
infantile mental rests — knows no such restraints, it 
would go direct to the goal, but by so doing would 
offend mortally that within us which has been built 
up by civilisation. Its demands may thus be anti- 
social and offensive to our conscious personality and 
then it can only play its part upon the stage under 
sufficient disguise not to be recognised. This dis- 
guise is the symbolism — a symbolism unrecognisable 
to the subject and so a means of defence, protecting 
him from a realisation that would be painful. 

The content of the unconscious, being essentially 
affective in nature — trends, tendencies, feelings, — 
can only receive expression in consciousness, which 
is preponderantly conceptual and ideational in con- 
tent, by a species of translation whereby the feeling 
qualities are expressed concretely. As the content 
of the unconscious is also composed of ways of think- 
ing and feeling which have been discarded, left be- 
hind in the development of the personality, such 
translated expressions are not understood by con- 
sciousness when they do appear. The unconscious 



SYMBOLISM 91 

is relatively infantile and as the infantile is not use- 
ful to assist in adult adaptations, but is in fact a 
hindrance, its outcrop is not understood and if its 
suggestions are followed they lead to disaster. This 
repression of our past is a purely pragmatic affair 
to assist us in making new adaptations.^"^ It is for 
the purpose, as Mr. Benjamin Kidd would say, of 
** projected efficiency '^ by the elimination of what 
would interfere with future adaptations.^^ 

This symbolism of the unconscious is the only 
symbolism in which the psychoanalyst is primarily 
interested and Ferenczi ^^ would restrict the use of 
the word symbol altogether to those symbols as get 
in consciousness a logically confused and ungrounded 
affect, which affective over-emphasis is due to an un- 
conscious identification with something else to which 
that affect really belongs. For him not all likenesses 
are symbols but only those that have one member of 
the equation repressed in the unconscious. 

The disguise is the greater the farther the indi- 

17 "The cerebral mechanism is arranged just so as to drive back 
into the unconscious almost the whole of this past, and to admit 
beyond the threshold only that which can cast light on the present 
situation or further the action now being prepared — in short, only 
that which can give useful work." (Bergson: "Creative Evolu- 
tion.") "We trail behind us, unawares, the whole of our past; but 
our memory pours into the present only the odd recollection or 
two that in some way completes our present situation." (Bergson, 
op. cit.) 

18 Cited by T. W. Mitchell : Role of Repression in Forgetting. 
British Jour. Psych., Vol. VII, No. 2, September, 1914. 

19 S. Ferenczi : Zur Ontogenese der Symbole. Int. Zeit. f. 
Aerztliche Psychoan., Vol. I, p. 436. 



92 CHARACTER FORMATION 

vidual has advanced on the path of cultural develop- 
ment, the greater and the deeper the mass of ma- 
terial that overlies the simple primitive instincts. 
The difficulty of interpreting the symbolism, which 
expresses the naive wishes of the unconscious, in- 
creases proportionately to the distance which sepa- 
rates the conscious from th^ unconscious way of 
thinking.^^ 

The unconscious, while in a sense strictly logical, 
is nevertheless quite uncritical. The finer relational 
distinctions belong only to the higher type of con- 
scious thinking. So in the unconscious, the simplest 
analogies stand easily for identities. Here we see 
then that reasoning, as we know it, does not enter at 
all, but just a play of crude analogies which are 
dramatised into an expression of wish-fulfilment. 
We are, therefore, quite prepared to find mother, 
wife, daughter used interchangeably in the symbol- 
ism of the unconscious, the one easily taking the 
place of and being interchangeable with the other. 
This is well shown in a case reported by MacCurdy.^^ 
Here the patient identified the child with the mother 

20 Of course the distinction between conscious and unconscious 
must not be thought of as definite and clear cut. Clear cut dis- 
tinctions do not occur in nature. The growth of a conscious, re- 
lational way of thinking has been slow — a gradual development 
from a way of thinking that was affective; and so there must 
naturally exist intermediate forms in which the two ways of think- 
ing exist in varying proportions. 

21 John T. MacCurdy: The Productions in a Manic-Like State 
Illustrating Freudian Mechanisms. N. Y. State Hospitals Bulletin, 
Aug., 1913. 



SYMBOLISM 93 

and later represented the mother as the offspring of 
the child. In his phantasies he first married his 
mother, then himself, and finally his mother again 
as his own daughter. He changed into a woman, 
gave birth to a child and then was himself that child. 
His father is his wife 's husband, etc. 

All these changes, which so outrage our developed 
way of looking at things, can be understood when we 
realise that their motivating force is the unconscious 
and that the unconscious way of thinking is rela- 
tively infantile and affective. The child has not 
come to a comparative, relational way of thinking of 
the people who surround it. Its libido, its love goes 
out at first indifferently to the several people it 
comes in contact with, becoming finally more closely 
associated with those who stand in the closest rela- 
tions to it, who are more frequently and for a longer 
time present, and who serve it best by helping bring 
its wishes to gratification. 

When, in addition, we also bear in mind the energic 
concept of libido, when we realise that it is energy 
which becomes fixed now upon this now upon that 
person or thing as the field of interest moves here 
and there, we can realise how the love that goes in- 
differently to the mother, the father, the sister, may 
with equal indifference be symbolised by the one as 
by the other. 

This explanation also gives the key to many other 
of the very naive analogies which are sufficient for 
purposes of identification. Among the Saxons of 



94 CHARACTER FORMATION 

Transylvania^^ when a woman is in labor all the 
knots of her garments are untied and all locks on 
doors or boxes are unlocked in the belief that by so 
doing her delivery will be facilitated. Here the 
libido, let us for the moment call it the interest, is 
centred upon the ease of delivery which will, of 
course, be facilitated by removing obstructions. 
Therefore everything is opened, obstructions are re- 
moved, knots are untied, labor will therefore be 
easy. Accept the analogy, remember that the sym- 
bols are symbols of that particular portion of the 
libido of the individual concerned with the desire 
to remove obstructions, and the conclusions are 
rigidly logical. The comparing of an obstruction in 
a string by a knot and an obstruction in the birth 
passage belongs to a higher type of thinking and so 
cannot enter here. We must not therefore criticise 
the results by this higher standard. The reasoning 
is understandable, may we not even say correct, so 
long as we remain at the lower level. 

This facile substitution of one person or thing for 
another with which it has but the faintest resem- 
blance shows us the mind operating free from Intel- 
lectual critique, stripped of all comparative and re- 
lational ways of thinking, guided along by feeling 
qualities. Are not its results quite as logical, quite 
as understandable, as long as we remain at the feel- 
ing level! In fact has it not a special validity of its 
own quite apart from the criteria of intelligence? 

22 J. G. Frazer: "The Golden Bough" (3d ed.), Part II. Taboo 
and the Perils of the Soul, p. 294. 



SYMBOLISM 95 

By means of our feelings do we not more nearly suc- 
ceed in ^^ attaching ourselves to the inner becoming 
of things," 2^ rather than *^ place ourselves outside 
them." Is there not here a distinction between in- 
tuition and intellect? such as Bergson makes when he 
says,^* ^^Intelligence remains the luminous nucleus 
around which instinct, even enlarged and purified 
into intuition, forms only a vague nebulosity. ' ' 

A reaction-time psychology which endeavours to 
reach an understanding of mental processes solely 
from such surface indications as the time interval 
between the reception of a stimulus and a given form 
of response is based upon a simplistic conception of 
the human mind. **In reality, the past is preserved 
by itself, automatically. In its entirety, probably, 
it follows us at every instant ; all that we have felt, 
thought and willed from our earliest infancy is there, 
leaning over the present which is about to join it, 
pressing against the portals of consciousness that 
would fain leave it outside. . . . Doubtless we think 
with only a small part of our past, but it is with our 
entire past, including the original bent of our soul, 
that we desire, will and act. Our past, then, as a 
whole, is made manifest to us in its impulse; it is 
felt in the form of tendency, although a small part of 
it only is known in the form of idea." ^^ 

Any particular act is an end product. It is pos- 
sible only because of all that has gone before. No 

23 Bergson : "Creative Evolution." 

24 lUd. 

85 Bergson, loc. cit. 



96 CHARACTER FORMATION 

thought, no word, no gesture but is an expression of 
the whole individual — never of just that limited por- 
tion which is present as conscious idea. Our conduct 
is therefore highly symbolic as expressive of that 
much larger portion of us, the unconscious, which 
exists as tendency, feeling. 

Keeping in mind the energic conception of the 
libido we can understand then that a symbol is an 
expression of ourselves. The particular person or 
thing is used as a symbol because it represents our 
way of thinking and feeling about the fact it stands 
for. It stands, therefore, for ourselves or so much 
of ourselves as is represented in our feeling attitude 
toward the thing symbolised. The patient who, in a 
dream, symbolises the sexual by a wild animal has 
not only made a symbol for sexuality, but has also 
expressed in that symbol an element of his own sex- 
uality which is recognised as wild. 

The use of objects and things in the environment 
as symbols is a most common manifestation in the 
psychoses. The ^ ^feeling of influence" in prsecox 
and the * delusion of persecution" in paranoid states 
are good examples. In both instances the patient 
symbolises certain elements of his own psyche which 
he recognises as *'bad" or destructive, by persons or 
forces outside of himself and then feels their evil 
influence as coming from those sources. In this way, 
among other things, he escapes responsibility for his 
bad thoughts and evil actions. But if he escapes re- 
sponsibility he does so at the cost of the definition 
of his personality. 



SYMBOLISM 97 

In the course of development man has become pro- 
gressively more individual. From herding together 
like animals in groups where one person was the 
same as another, when human life had little value, 
and when the individual felt himself constantly 
bound by all sorts of mysterious ties to the natural 
objects about him, he has developed to a position of 
sharply defined individuality, in a group where the 
individual counts for vastly more, and far from feel- 
ing that he is mysteriously tied to the forces of na- 
ture he actually has dominated those forces. 

The praBCox who feels all sorts of mysterious in- 
fluences all about him, who hears voices in the walls 
or in the trees, who feels electric shocks pass through 
him from mysterious sources, is more like primitive 
man in that his individuality is less clearly defined, 
less clearly differentiated. His personality, by this 
process of introversion of the libido, becomes vastly 
greater in extent, but at the expense of clear defini- 
tion, for it merges in a misty haze of indistinctness 
into all surrounding nature. This is the psychologi- 
cal state and equivalent of animism. 

SEXUALITY OF SYMBOLISM 

One of the most widespread criticisms of the whole 
psychoanalytic movement has been that it gave an 
undue importance to the sexual and read sexuality 
into the meaning of everything. The importance of 
the sexual, I think, is coming to be generally recog- 
nised, but the reason why such a large number of the 



98 CHARACTER FORMATION 

symbolisms should have a sexual meaning I do not 
think has been adequately dealt with. 

I have already pointed out ^^ that our unconscious 
represents our infantile and primitive moorings. 
We, so to speak, drag it behind us like a huge and 
heavy tail which is always weighing us down and 
making ascent difficult and only to be accomplished 
at the expenditure of great energy — ^work. But like 
the tail of a kite it serves to steady our flight and 
while it prevents rapid ascent it also keeps our move- 
ments from suddenly going off at tangents — it directs 
and guides. Without the tail the kite would shoot 
wildly first in this direction, then in that, with rapid 
changes of direction at sharp angles. With the tail 
the kite soars in gentle curves and while it may dip 
from time to time the general direction is maintained, 
the end result is the attainment of a higher alti- 
tude. 

The libido, when for any reason it is dammed up, 
when it no longer flows freely in self expression, 
tends to flow backward, to retrace the path along 
which it has come. Now it is the sexual which is the 
oldest avenue of libido expression, its path is more 
deeply channelled than any other, for it has to be 
kept open for race preservation. The libido finds 
its way out by this path more easily than by any 
other when its forward progress is blocked. Subli- 
mation only occurs at the expense of great energy 
and when the paths of sublimation are closed or 
blocked the libido reanimates its old familiar ways, 

26 Chap. III. 



SYMBOLISM 99 

flows in tlie old channels that had been largely or 
altogether abandoned. 

This phenomenon is precisely what we see in the 
neuroses. The neurotics are essentially moral per- 
sons, their conflicts are moral conflicts, but they often 
come to us, nevertheless, and we can see now why, 
complaining of and distressed by the grossly sexual 
character of their thoughts. Their libido has been 
unable to find its way out at higher levels of self- 
expression and drops back to lower levels. It is in- 
structive to note the concretely sexual character of 
a patient's dreams at the beginning of an analysis 
and then see how this characteristic slowly fades 
out as the analysis progresses. The symbolism of 
the dream becomes progressively more spiritualised 
and at the same time its meaning begins to be ap- 
parent to the patient, the repressions have been de- 
stroyed, the drag back of the unconscious is less in 
evidence, the dream takes place at a higher level, it 
is nearer to consciousness and therefore to conscious 
acceptance. 

With this conception we can understand too the bi- 
sexuality of sexual symbols. If the whole is given 
in all its parts, if the original manifestations of the 
creative energy, the libido, contain all the possibili- 
ties for its future ramifications in various and divers 
forms of sublimation, then we have only to go back 
far enough to see that it is not the male or the female 
element alone that constitutes the problem, but it is 
the problem of sexuality that occupies the patient 
and produces the symbolism. The classical symbol 



100 CHARACTER FORMATION 

of the male, the phallus as represented by the ser- 
pent, we have only to analyse deeper to find in many 
cases at least, I do not say all, has also a certain 
significance for the female. This principle holds 
equally whether we accept the sexual as the funda- 
mental way of libido expression or whether we pre- 
fer to see the fundamental in Nietzsche's *^will to 
power" as adapted by Adler. 

From the time of birth on the libido is drafted first 
in this direction, then in that to serve the purposes 
of development. In certain directions, particularly 
the higher intellectual, it becomes highly sublimated 
so that it bears little evidence of its origin. A cer- 
tain portion, however, must remain attached to dis- 
tinctly sexual ends for the purpose of reproduction. 

In addition to the libido which is used for these 
purposes every one has a certain store of reserve 
energy which should be available for constructive 
work. It is the function of psychoanalysis to see to 
it that this energy is not tied down, fixed at low 
levels, that it is free to be used in constructive living. 

At the beginning of analysis this energy is found 
fixed at lower levels which, for the reasons already 
given, results in preoccupation with sexual matters. 
As the analysis proceeds its attachments to the sex- 
ual are loosed, it is made available for sublimation 
in higher ends, it becomes spiritualised. 

In fact, if we will look deeply into the meanings of 
the most concretely sexual symbolisms of our neu- 
rotic patients we will be able to read in them the 
efforts of the patients to escape their bondage to the 



SYMBOLISM 101 

sexual. To accuse psyclioanalysis, therefore, of 
dealing too mucli with the sexual is obviously an un-^ 
informed criticism. It is not the fault of the analyst 
that the facts of development are as they are, while 
as a matter of fact the object of psychoanalysis is to 
free the energy from its crippling sexual moorings. 
Emerson 2"^ ** described our friends as those 
'who make us do what we can.' We count on our 
friends to comfort us with pleasant things; to ad- 
minister a pleasant anodyne to us when life lays its 
burdens on us. He summoned them to awaken us 
out of sleep, to scourge us if necessary on the road 
to nobility.'' 

INTEKPRETATION" OF SYMBOLS 

We have thus come to see that man develops from 
a being that only feels to one that tries to use rea- 
son in all his mental operations. Symbols, that is, 
expressions or objects that stand for something else 
may do so only because of some analogy which they 
have to that which they stand for. The more patent 
the analogy the less we are apt to see the symbolic 
and conversely the wider the difference the more 
ready we are to acknowledge symbolism. When 
both terms are fully conscious all we see is a like- 
ness, analogy, metaphor, parable or what not. 
When one term is repressed and unconscious then 
the meaning is no longer evident, it is expressed 
symbolically. 

27 Hamilton W. Mabie: Emerson's Journals. Outlook, Feb. 21, 
1914. 



102 CHARACTER FORMATION 

Whether or not, then, we see the symbolism of a 
given expression, for example, depends upon the 
closeness of analogy between the sign and the thing 
signified. The closer the analogy the less the sym- 
bolism and the less evident the analogy the more 
pronounced the symbolism. Symbolism, therefore, 
has to do with, must be considered in connection 
with, so-called reasoning by analogy. 

Reasoning by analogy is generally put down as be- 
ing bad reasoning. Without entering at length into 
a discussion of this point I venture the assertion 
that it not only is not bad reasoning but it is the 
basis of all reasoning. Jolm Fiske well says,^^ ^^A 
thing is said to be explained when it is classified with 
other things with which we are already acquainted. 
That is the only kind of explanation of which the 
highest science is capable." Reasoning by analogy 
reaches its perfection in mathematics. When, for ex- 
ample, the calculation of the astronomer as to the ex- 
act location of a planet at a given time turns out to 
be true it is because the calculation and the fact have 
attained to a degree of likeness which we term 
identity.29 

28 "Myths and Myth-Makers." 

29 "It is through the operation of certain laws of ideal associa- 
tion that all human thinking, that of the highest as well as that of 
the lowest minds, is conducted: the discovery of the law of gravita- 
tion, as well as the invention of such a superstition as the Hand 
of Glory, is at bottom but a case of association of ideas. The differ- 
ence between the scientific and the mythologic inference consists 
solely in the number of checks which in the former case combine to 
prevent any other than the true conclusion from being framed into 
a proposition to which the mind assents. Countless accumulated 



SYMBOLISM 103 

The progress of mental development, conditioned 
by the conflict between the pleasure-pain and the re- 
ality motives, is progressively from an aifective to 
an intellectual control of conduct. In primitive man 
and the child, whose conduct is wholly atfectively 
controlled, the vaguest analogies serve as identities 
which are subjected in the course of development 
to ever increasingly rigid controls out of which finally 
arise the concepts of cause and effect based upon 
experimental verification. 

The nearer we approach an intellectually con- 
trolled situation the more individual is the material 
with which we must deal, while the further we are 

experiences have taught the modern that there are many associa- 
tions of ideas which do not correspond to any actual connection of 
cause and effect in the world of phenomena; and he has learned 
accordingly to apply to his newly framed notions the rigid test of 
verification. Besides which the same accumulation of experiences 
has built up an organised structure of ideal associations into which 
only the less extravagant newly framed notions have any chance 
of fitting. The primitive man, or the modern savage who is to 
some extent his counterpart, must reason without the aid of these 
multifarious checks. That immense mass of associations which an- 
swer to what are called physical laws, and which in the mind of 
the civilised modern have become almost organic, have not been 
formed in the mind of the savage; nor has he learned the necessity 
of experimentally testing any of his newly framed notions, save per- 
haps a few of the commonest. Consequently there is nothing but 
superficial analogy to guide the course of his thought hither or 
thither, and the conclusions at which he arrives will be determined 
by associations of ideas occurring apparently at haphazard. Hence 
the quaint or grotesque fancies with which European and barbaric 
folk-lore is filled, in the framing of which the myth-maker was but 
reasoning according to the best methods at his command." — John 
Fiske: "Myths and Myth-Makers." 



104 CHARACTER FORMATION 

from an intellectually controlled situation and cor- 
respondingly the nearer to a completely affectively 
controlled one, the more the material with which we 
deal tends to be the common possession of humanity. 

A patient dreams of something happening near 
the corner of a house. On the corner of this house 
the water and waste pipes are^ arranged in a cer- 
tain way that identifies the house as his country 
residence. This mental content, namely, the knowl- 
edge of the peculiar arrangement of the water 
and waste pipes on a particular house is his indi- 
vidual possession. But when we see demented pa- 
tients of all nationalities all over the world, of both 
sexes, of all social grades, dabbling in their urine 
and feces, soiling themselves with it, bathing them- 
selves in it and rubbing it on their bodies, even drink- 
ing and eating it, not to say developing more distinct 
ceremonials,^^ we must acknowledge that we are 
dealing with conduct which is motivated by factors 
which are a very long way from being individual. 
The very wide distribution of such conduct, under 
certain conditions of mental disease, would alone in- 
dicate that it was controlled by factors that at least 
very closely approached being racial if they were 
not actually so. 

In the matter of interpreting symbols we are con- 
trolled by the same principles. To see in baptism 
a ceremonial bath in holy water as a purification 

30 See in this connection S. E. Jelliffe and Zenia X : Compul- 
sion Neurosis and Pi'imitive Culture. The Psychoanalytic Review^ 
Vol. I, No. 4, October, 1914. 



SYMBOLISM 105 

from sin for which a state of mind of repentance 
and remorse is a necessary precondition is a valid 
interpretation so far as it goes, but it does not dip 
below the conscious level. This may be said of a 
whole host of interpretations such as the plan of the 
Gothic Cathedral as the form of the cross, the tri- 
forium gallery with its reduplication of three as the 
Trinity, the Dove as the Holy Spirit, the spiritual 
union with God in taking the eucharist, etc. These 
are all superficial interpretations. 

If we should go a little further, however, we would 
find an interpretation not quite so evident, but yet 
a considerable ways from having one term in the 
unconscious. For example Durandus ^^ thus gives 
the significance of the cement used in building a 
church. 

**The cement, without which there can be no stabil- 
ity of the walls, is made of lime, sand, and water. 
The lime is fervent charity, which joineth to itself 
the sand, that is, undertakings for the temporal wel- 
fare of our brethren: because true charity taketli 
care of the widow and the aged, and the infant, and 
the infirm : and they who have it study to work with 
their hands, that they may possess wherewith to 
benefit them. Now the lime and the sand are bound 
together in the wall by an admixture of water. But 
water is an emblem of the Spirit. And as without 
cement the stones cannot cohere, so neither can man 
be built up in the heavenly Jerusalem without char- 

31 William Durandus: "The Symbolism of Churches and Church 
Ornaments." London, Gibbings & Company, 1906. 



106 CHARACTER FORMATION 

ity, which the Holy Ghost worketh in them. All the 
stones are polished and squared — that is, holy and 
pure, and are built by the hands of the Great Work- 
man into an abiding place in the Church: whereof 
some are borne, and bear nothing, as the w^eaker 
members: some are both borne and bear, as those 
of moderate strength : and some bear, and are borne 
of none save Christ, the corner-stone, as they that 
are perfect. All are bound together by one spirit 
of charity, as though fastened with cement; and 
those living stones are knit together in the bond of 
peace. Christ was our wall in His conversation: 
and our outer wall in His Passion.'' 

This is an example of anagogic interpretation. 

And finally : A patient dreams that she is delayed 
in going to say good-bye to her father by a young 
man whom she meets on the way. Analysis shows 
that this young man stood in her mind for the orig- 
inal affective state that bound her in her affections 
to her father and therefore symbolises an incest 
phantasy which in its broader meanings means that 
her way of thinking, as symbolised by the young man, 
was a way of thinking which fixed her to her infan- 
tile moorings to the family and served to keep her a 
child and from going on in her development to 
adulthood. This is (very briefly, of course) a psy- 
choanalytic interpretation where one term of the 
symbolism, the fixation on the father, is in the un- 
conscious. 

When we deal with the symbolism of the uncon- 
scious we are dealing with a matter that is never in- 



SYMBOLISM 107 

dividual and in the proportion that we sound the ul- 
timate depths of the unconscious do we approach a 
symbolism which is universal in its meaning. 

The more nearly a symbolism has universal mean- 
ing the more right we have to interpret it without 
appeal to the individual while the further we get 
from the depths of the unconscious, the nearer we 
approach the surface, the more individualistic do the 
meanings become and the more necessary it is to ap- 
peal to the subject for their meaning. 

In actual work, however, this appeal to the indi- 
vidual is practically always necessary because, no 
matter how profound and universal the meaning may 
be, it is always clothed in the individual's personal 
experiences. This, of course, must be so. The in- 
dividual is limited in the forms of his expression by 
the actual, available material in his own psyche. 

This material, however, can only be understood 
when we appreciate that its source is the individual's 
historical past — the unconscious — and when we at 
the same time appreciate that this historical past is 
made up not only of the past of the individual but 
the past of the phylum. In other words, the mind 
has its embryology and its comparative anatomy; 
its ontogenesis and its phylogenesis; just like the 
body, and just like the body, too, many of its disor- 
ders can only be understood in the light of its history. 

The patient who patted her father on the cheek 
and called herself his mother and him **her little 
David'' was thinking in a wholly infantile way, while 
the patient who says, *^I am both male and female 



108 CHARACTER FORMATION 

in sex, with one mind and body controlling both, I 
have to be one to be the father and creator of the 
various races and elements of the human organisa- 
tion," is expressing ideas that hark back to ways of 
thinking that are older than the individual — he is 
expressing archaic delusions. This latter patient, in 
this utterance, reminds one of ^ the Arddha Nari in- 
carnation of Brahma who in the act of creation be- 
came both male and female. ^^The Supreme Spirit 
in the act of creation became, by Voga, two-fold, the 
right side was male, the left was Prakriti. She is 
of one form with Brahma. She is Maya, eternal and 
imperishable, such as the Spirit, such is the inherent 
energy (The Sacti), as the faculty of burning is in- 
herent in fire.'' — Brahma Vaivartta Puranu, Pro- 
fessor Wilson.^2 

THE PHYLOGENETIC MEAInTIN-G AND THE ENEKGIC VALUE 
OF THE SYMBOL 

Ferenczi's use of the term symbol to apply to like- 
nesses that have one member of the equation re- 
pressed in the unconscious is purely pragmatic and 
for psychoanalytic purposes only. The whole sub- 
ject of symbolism and the meaning of symbols would 
be very greatly and artificially contracted by such 
a viewpoint. To see the real breadth and sound the 
real depths of the subject it is important that we 
should not be content to remain moored to the thera- 
peutic problem of the neuroses. As soon as we get 

32 Thomas Inman : "Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Sym- 
bolism." New York, T. W. Bouton, 1884. 



SYMBOLISM 109 

away from this standpoint we see at once that every 
word, every idea may properly be considered as sym- 
bolic, — the idea symbolises in mental imagery the 
thing in the outside world and the word symbolises^ 
the idea. From this point of view all of our think- 
ing takes place by the use of symbols and then it 
follows, from the very principles of development, 
that in the last analysis they must all have their 
roots in the unconscious. 

Animal reactions, more particularly those of man, 
may be conveniently considered as occurring at three 
levels, with the usual understanding that here as 
elsewhere there are no hard and fast boundaries. 
The first or phylogenetically the oldest is the physico- 
chemical level. Broadly speaking this is the level 
of such functions as circulation, growth, digestion. 
It is the level of the endocrinous glands and the 
sympathetic and autonomic nervous systems and is 
well represented by the chemical regulators of metab- 
olism. The next level is the sensori-motor level in- 
tegrated by the peripheral nerves, spinal cord and 
brain stem. It is the level of the reflex. The third 
level is the psychic. At this level we are no longer 
dealing with questions of leverage, hydrodynamics 
or temperature, with acids, bases, or hormones, nor 
yet with simple or compound reflexes or nerve cells, 
nerve fibres or synapses. Here we are dealing 
with symbols and symbols only and so this level may 
aptly be further qualified as the symbolic level. 

Is there anything that these levels possess in com- 
mon? and what has been the advantage in proceeding 



110 CHARACTER FORMATION 

from one to tlie other in the course of develop- 
ment ! 

The long bone which, as a lever, is moved by a 
muscle transmits energy from one place to another 
in the form of motion and changes the direction of 
that motion. In the process much of the energy, in 
the last analysis- all of it, is transformed into heat, 
chemical energy, etc. The chemical regulators of 
metabolism carry energy from one place to another 
which is transformed in the various resulting chem- 
ical reactions. The sensori-motor nervous system, 
the reflex arc, is a transmitter of motion which it also 
transforms: for example one effect of illumination 
of the retina is contraction of the pupil. At the 
symbolic level a symbol, such as patriotism, is ca- 
pable of transmitting and transforming an enormous 
amount of energy into very numerous and complex 
avenues of conduct of individuals and nations. 

That the organism is a transmitter and trans- 
former of energy, will be fairly evident so long as we 
limit consideration to the physico-chemical and 
sensori-motor levels, but when we come to apply this 
same principle to the psychic, or as I have already 
designated it, the symbolic level, it is not so evident 
because we are not in the habit of thinking in such 
terms. Its application here will therefore bear 
further illustration. 

Let us take as an example the national flag. That 
the flag is a symbol needs no argument. It stands 
for, represents, symbolises, the nation. That is al- 
most all that can be said for it in general, but further 



SYMBOLISM 111 

than that it stands in each individual's thinking for 
what the nation means to him. The idea of the na- 
tion, itself a symbol, means one thing to one person, 
another thing to another person. To one it means 
protection, to another community of interests, to still 
another a certain geographical area ; to one it stands 
for a military unit, to another it means right, honour, 
loyalty, etc. Every individual gives his own par- 
ticular touch to the concept nation, and so for him 
the flag has that special meaning. And yet with all 
this infinite diversity the flag is able to unite all that 
is held in common, all these various ideas and feel- 
ings meet on a common basis which is nucleated in 
the national emblem and at large gatherings of peo- 
ple one can see how they are swayed by it, how in 
one common sea of feeling they all react in practically 
the same way, with the same feelings, the same emo- 
tions, the same sounds as they sing a national an- 
them. There is no need to dilate upon the obvious 
and more than mention the immense amount of en- 
ergy which may thus be liberated; the particular 
point of emphasis, however, is that in some way this 
enormous energy is bound up in the symbol. The 
symbol is a transmitter and transmuter of energy at 
this level just as the reflex arc, the ion, or the lever 
are at lower levels. 

So much for the answer to the question as to 
whether the three reaction levels possess anything 
in common. They all then present reactions which 
are different ways of transmitting and transmuting 
energy. Now, why has the symbol been found of 



112 CHARACTER FOEMATION 

special advantage in the course of development? 
To facilitate the argument this question may be an- 
swered at once. It is because of the wide latitude of 
usefulness the symbol has both as a carrier and 
transmuter of energy, and also because it can be 
used as a vehicle to transmit energy from a lower to 
a higher level. To illustrate: 

First as to the wide latitude of usefulness of the 
symbol. Consider the symbol money for example. 
Money represents accumulated energy. Work of 
whatever character, unintelligent physical labour or 
highly intellectual, is reduced to the common stand- 
ard of money value and so the energy which an indi- 
vidual has to give in the form of work he, so to 
speak, turns into the energy symbol money and this 
symbol can be exchanged for any one of innumer- 
able kinds of energy carriers — for bread and meat, 
for machinery for manufacturing purposes, for 
books of learning, for maintaining a home, in short 
for an infinity of things which have as their func- 
tion the maintenance and preservation of the indi- 
vidual and the increase and extension of his power 
and influence. 

Money as a symbol of energy which could be ex- 
changed in trade has existed from the earliest times. 
The energy has been concretely represented by all 
sorts of things from the crude forms of primitive 
man, the shells, beads, and wampum to the highly 
elaborated gold and silver coins and bills of the pres- 
ent day. The underlying principle, the common 
meaning, the unconscious origin has always been the 



SYMBOLISM 113 

same. It would be hard to imagine a more adjust- 
able, usable, practically available energy transmit- 
ter and one at once so sensitive to all the circum- 
stances in the midst of which it exists. Witness the 
fluctuations of foreign exchange in response to ru- 
mours affecting the possible solvency of a nation. 

Money, however, is not the only symbol that has 
these qualities of easy availability — an energy trans- 
mitter coupled with great sensitiveness of reaction. 
In fact if we will examine any symbol we will find it 
to have much the same properties, such symbols for 
example as birth and death, good and bad, society, 
culture, education, character, etc. The symbol God, 
for example, has stood for concepts all the way 
from the crudest anthropomorphism to the most 
abstruse and abstract present-day conceptions of a 
first cause or the absolute. This same symbol has 
been able to follow along with the development of 
man's religious consciousness ever remaining deli- 
cately attuned to his stage of development and serv- 
ing to express him in his reactions. Herein we see 
the most important function, the greatest value of 
the symbol. It is not only a transmitter of energy 
but it is capable of transmitting energy from a lower 
to a higher level. In the evolution of the concept 
God the same symbol has been continuously employed 
but the energy has been employed at progressively 
higher and higher levels. The symbol has been 
capable of this wide field of usefulness in this pe- 
culiarly valuable way. To add an illustration in the 
field of therapeusis. The patient that Dr. Kempf 



114 CHARACTER FORMATION 

recently reported.^^ This woman had what the pure 
Freudians would call an incest complex. In other 
words she had been forced back upon and in herself 
by her circumstances which did not permit of ade- 
quate outlet for self-expression. Shut off from find- 
ing expression in the outside world she was driven 
back upon herself — introversion — to ever lower in- 
stinctive levels in her effort at finding satisfaction, 
pleasure. Finally, in the delirium of her psychosis, 
she found an outlet in bringing again upon the stage 
her infantile satisfactions in her relation to and love 
for her father. The symbol ^^father" carried over 
the energy of her libido and permitted her to find 
expression. The important thing therapeutically is 
that this same symbol was effective as a carrier of 
energy to higher levels which resulted in her recov- 
ery. The energy bound up in the symbol ^^ father'' 
was carried over to the concept * * Heavenly Father ' ' 
and she thus was able to emerge from a condition 
of infantile helplessness to one of social utility by 
developing a distinctly religious type of reaction — 
by sublimation. 

In the lower forms of life and at the phylogeneti- 
cally older reacting levels of the human organism the 
reactions are relatively more fixed, they occur within 
much narrower limits of variation, they are more 
predictable and less adjustable and variable. The 
physical are the most rigid, some of them even being 
so constant as to be reducible to mathematical formu- 
lae; the chemical though less rigidly restricted still 

33 The Psychoanalytic Review, Vol. II, No. IV, Oct., 1915. 



SYMBOLISM 115 

show relatively little capacity for adjustment and 
variation; this continues true but to less extent of 
the reactions of the sensori-motor level. 

The living organism in its evolution is ever striv- 
ing to gain dominion over its environment and in 
this struggle for dominance organisms are developed 
which become increasingly adaptable and adjustable 
to the constantly changing conditions of that environ- 
ment. In the course of this evolution chemical rad- 
icals, hormones, reflexes, and a host of other physical, 
chemical, and nervous agents have been utilised as 
transmitters and transmuters of energy and have 
each in turn been superseded. Though some have 
been more adjustable than others they have all lacked 
a capacity for variability which made indefinite ad- 
vance in the control of the environment possible. 
The symbol has finally been developed as the energy 
carrier because it possesses these properties. 

The symbol only comes under consideration at 
conscious levels, at levels of reaction which are so 
complex, which present so many possibilities that 
physical, chemical or reflex nervous reactions, be- 
cause of their relatively stereotyped character, are 
no longer available. Consciousness is an expression 
of reactions which at least appear to be indeterminate 
and at these levels the idea, as symbol, takes the 
place of the hormone or the reflex at lower levels as 
the carrier of energy. The idea is therefore a sym- 
bolic reaction at the conscious level at which the 
symbol is the energy distributor. 

The conception of the psyche as energy with a 



> 



116 CHARACTER FORMATION 

history, not only individual but racial, serves to re- 
late it more easily with the body, especially in these 
later years, when the ultimate particles of matter 
are being thought of as points of stress in the ether. 
Our psychological concepts are therefore only sym- 
bols for various stations in the process of energy 
distribution and we can see kow such a dynamic 
psychology may serve to finally solve that pseudo- 
problem, the relation of mind and body, by break- 
ing down the artificial barrier between them. 



CHAPTER VI 
DREAM MECHANISMS 

Up to this point we have dealt with the broad 
general questions which have been necessary in order 
to define the placement of the psyche in the evolu- 
tional scheme and outline in a general way its depend- 
ence upon and development from pre-psychic types 
of reaction. In other words we have dealt with the 
nature of the material that goes into the types of 
reaction which we call psychological. The next step 
in the logical unfoldment of the scheme of presenta- 
tion will be the formulation of the various mechan- 
isms which are utilised at the psychic or symbolic 
level in dealing with the two-fold problem of in- 
tegration and adjustment. This aspect of the prob- 
lem can be most satisfactorily approached by a study 
of the mechanisms of dreams in which we see the 
various psychological types of reaction peculiarly 
emphasised because of the exaggerated activity of 
the unconscious terms which tend during sleep to 
come to a relatively extreme form of activity and to 
elude the ordinary corrections of intellectual critique. 

Of course, dreams, we know, have pretty gen- 
erally been regarded as of no importance, as foolish 
jumbles, as grotesque though perhaps interesting, 
and often as depending upon conditions just preced- 

117 



118 CHARACTER FORMATION 

ing or during sleep. This latter has been about as 
far as the attempt to explain has usually gone. For 
example, a person dreams he is in the Arctic regions 
because he has kicked the bed clothes off and is cold. 
The simple question why he should dream of being 
in the Arctic regions rather than at home in the 
winter or in a cold storage plani or a thousand other 
cold places shows at once the inadequacy of such an 
explanation. 

To put the whole matter very simply: the ma- 
terial of which the dream is composed must neces- 
sarily be made up of the content of the dreamer's 
psyche and there must be some sufficient reason why 
it is put together in one particular way rather than 
in another. To fail to accept these propositions is 
the equivalent of acknowledging that the dream 
may be wholly fortuitous which again is tantamount 
to denying the possibility of a scientific psychology. 
Dreams are psychic events, and like all other psychic 
events they are end products which can only reach 
their complete explanation by knowing all that has 
gone before. If we take up their study in this spirit, 
that they are phenomena — natural phenomena — and 
therefore are proper objects for scientific investiga- 
tion rather than just nonsense to be dismissed with- 
out even examining their credentials we shall soon 
see that they are filled with meanings, often of the 
most important character for an understanding of 
the individual and his problems. 

We think in one of two different ways : first by the 
method with which we are all familiar and to which 



DREAM MECHANISMS 119 

the term thinking is almost exclusively applied. In 
this method of thinking there is clear consciousness 
in the sense that the person is definitely oriented to- 
ward reality and the thinking is carried on with the 
exercise of careful critique and under the control of 
the processes which we term intellectual. Such 
clear conscious intelligent thinking has its motivating 
incentives in reality. 

There is another kind of thinking, however, which 
is very different from that just described. It is the 
thinking which takes place without conscious direc- 
tion or critique, the thinking in which ideas follow 
one another without selection, coming and going 
without apparent reason, and corresponding, not at 
all, with any relation between the individual and 
reality. This is the kind of thinking that takes 
place during dreaming, either during the dream of 
sleep, or during day dreaming, at times of mental 
abstraction and so-called wool gathering, and the 
thoughts which come at such times we no longer call 
thoughts, but phantasies. 

What is the significance of this thinking by phan- 
tasy formation? To understand this we must turn 
back for the moment to what has been said of the 
pain-pleasure and the reality motives for conduct, 
the conflict, and the nature of the unconscious and 
the conscious and realise that mental life is the re- 
sult of an effort to bring the individual into more 
effectual adaptation with his environment and that 
if we will glance for a moment over the life of the 
individual from the period of the first few weeks, 



120 CHARACTER FORMATION 

when the principal motive in life is nutritional, to 
the time of adulthood with all its conflicts and social 
demands, we will realise that in the process of adjust- 
ment which has necessarily taken place in the inter- 
val there has of necessity had to be put aside, more 
and more, as the demands from the outside increased, 
the immediate satisfaction of the demands which 
clamour for recognition from within. And so the 
process of adaptation has of necessity to have been 
one of compromise, compromise between the pleasure 
motive which would demand the immediate satisfac- 
tion of all bodily cravings and the reality motive 
which puts off fulfilment into an ever receding fu- 
ture of the demands of the present and insistent 
world of reality. 

The world of phantasy, therefore, the world of 
dreams, is dominated not by the reality motive, but 
by the pleasure motive, in other words the uncon- 
scious, that can only wish. It is for this reason that 
phantasy formations, whether they occur in the sleep- 
ing or in the waking state and whether they be 
termed dreams or visions or what not, are funda- 
mentally wish-fulfilling.^ 

1 The term wish is used here in a very broad sense. If I put 
out my hand to move a chair my hand meets with resistance. 
This resistance might, by analogy, be termed the wish of the chair 
not to be moved. The unconscious represents our moorings to the 
past and effort to go forward is met by its resistance which has 
first to be overcome. It represents infantile ways of satisfaction 
which the individual would fain hang on to, is loth to give up. 
This is the aspect of the unconscious which is referred to when 
it is said that the unconscious can only wish. 



DREAM MECHANISMS 121 

We therefore see at the outset conflict at the very- 
root of dreams and realising the nature of this con- 
flict we should not be surprised when we find an in- 
dividual unable to measure up to the demands of the 
real world, sinking back into his own world, the 
world of phantasy, the world where things come 
true as he would wish them, escaping from the de- 
mands of real life, and taking flight into this region 
either in his dreams, or, as we shall see later, perhaps 
in a psychosis.^ 

The whole question of the meaning of reality and 
of phantasy particularly as related to dreaming is 
especially well brought out in the Papyri of Phi- 
lonous.^ The dialogue is between Protagoras and 
Morosophus and proceeds as follows : 

P. ... As to your other question, did you ever 
meet Xanthias, the son of Glaucus? 

M. Yes, but he seemed to me a very ordinary 
man and quite unfit to aid in such inquiries. 

P. To me he seemed most wonderful, and a great 
proof of the truth I have maintained. For the 
wretch was actually unable to distinguish red from 
green, the colour of grass from that of blood ! You 
may imagine how he dressed, and how his taste was 
derided. But it was his eye and not his taste, that 
was in fault. I questioned him closely and am sure 

2 "Aristotle says somewhere : '\^'Tien we are awake we have a 
common world, when we dream each one has his own!' I think 
this last should be turned about and we should say: When, among 
men, one has his o^vn world, then it is to be presumed that he 
dreams." Kant. 

3 Previously referred to in Chap. I. 



122 CHARACTER FORMATION 

he could not help it. He simply saw colours dif- 
ferently. How and why I was not able to make out. 
But it was from his case and others like it, but less 
startling, that I learnt that truth and reality are to 
each man what appears to him. For the differences, 
I am sure, exist, even though they are not noticed 
unless they are very great and inconvenient. 

M. But surely Xanthias was diseased, and his 
judgments about colours are of no more importance 
than those of a madman. 

P. You do not get rid of the difference by calling 
it madness and disease. And how would you define 
the essential nature of madness and disease? 

M. I am sure I do not know. You should ask 
Asclepius. 

P. Ah, he is one of those gods I have never been 
able to meet! Let me hazard, rather, a conjecture 
that madness and disease are merely two ways of 
showing inability to keep up that common world in 
which we both are and are not, and from which we 
seem to drop out wholly when we die. 

M. A strange conjecture truly for a strange case ! 
Would you apply it also to disease? For in that 
case the difficulty seems to be rather in conforming 
oneself to things than to one's fellow-men. 

P. To both, rather. Does not a fever drive one 
madly out of the common world into a world of 
empty dreams? And is not the diseased body part 
of the common world? 

M. Perhaps, but such conjectures do not interest 



DREAM MECHANISMS 123 

me. Will you not rather give an account of your 
own disease or madness, that of thinking that the 
common world can be compounded out of a multi- 
tude of individual worlds? 

P. Willingly. Conceive then first of all a varied 
multitude, each of whom perceived things in a fashion 
peculiar to himself. 

M. You bid me conceive a world of madmen ! 

P. It does not matter what you call them, nor 
that our world was never in so grievous a condition. 
I only want you to see that such madmen would in 
no wise be able to agree or act together, and that 
•each would live shut up in himself, unintelligible to 
the others and with no comprehension of them. 

M. Of course. 

P. Would you admit also that such a life would 
be one of the extremest weakness? 

M. So weak as to be impossible ! 

P. Perhaps. And now suppose that by the in- 
terposition of some god, or as the saying is, ^*by a 
divine chance," some of these strange beings were 
to be endowed with the ability to agree and act to- 
gether in some partial ways, say in respect to the 
red and the sweet, and the loud and the pleasant. 
Would this not be a great advantage? And would 
they not be enabled to join together and to form a 
community in virtue of the communion they had 
achieved? And would they not be stronger by far 
than those who did not ** perceive the same"? And 
so would they not profit in proportion as they could 



124 CHAEACTER FORMATION 

** perceive the same"? and would not a world of 
** common'' perception and thought thus gradually 
grow up ? 

M. Only if they really did perceive the same : to 
^* agree in action'' and to ^^ perceive the same" are 
not the same, and when you have reached the former 
you have not proved the latter. ^ 

P. As much as I need to. For by ** perceiving 
the same ' ' I mean only perceiving in such a way that 
we can act together. Thus if we are told that a red 
light means ^^ danger" and a green light ** assist- 
ance," then if we both flee from the red and wel- 
come the green, we are said to *^ perceive the same." 
But whether what I perceive as red is in any other 
sense *Hhe same" as what you perceive as red, it is 
foolish even to inquire. For I cannot carry my 
**red" into your soul nor you yours into mine, and 
so we cannot compare them, nor see how far they are 
alike or not. And even if I could, my comparing of 
my *'red" with yours would not be the same as your 
comparing them. Moreover, if we imagined, what 
to me indeed is absurd but to you should be possible, 
namely, that when I perceive *^red" I feel as you do 
when you perceive ** green" and that your feeling 
when you perceive **red" is the same as mine when 
I perceive ** green," there would be no way of show- 
ing that we did not perceive alike. For we should 
always agree in distinguishing *^red" and ^^ green." 
The '^sameness," therefore, is not the cause of the 
common action, but its effect. Or rather it is an- 



DREAM MECHANISMS 125 

other way, less exact, but shorter, of asserting it. 
And so there arises the opinion that we all perceive 
alike, and that if any one does not, he is mad. Now 
this is true as opinion, being as it is convenient and 
salutary, and enough for ordinary life. But for the 
purposes of science we must be more precise, and 
regard ^^ perception of the same" not as a starting 
point, but as a goal, which in some matters we have 
almost, and for some purposes we have quite reached. 
•In short, we always at bottom reason from the ^ ' com- 
mon'' action to the ** common'' perception, and not 
conversely. Hence, too, when we wish to speak ex- 
actly, we must infer that no two ever quite *^ per- 
ceive the same," because their actions never quite 
agree. Moreover, this makes clear why we agree 
about some things and judge the same, and not about 
others, but judge differently. We agree about the 
things it is necessary to agree about in order to live 
at all; we vary concerning the things which are not 
needed for bare life, even though they may conduce 
to a life that is beautiful and good. But it is only 
when we do not act at all that we are able to live our 
own private life apart, and to differ utterly from all 
others. 

M. And what, pray, is this strange life in which 
we do not act ? 

P. Do you not remember the saying of Heracli- 
tus, *^For the waking there is one common world, but 
of those asleep each one turns aside to his own 
privacy"? And do you suppose that if we acted on 



A 



126 CHARACTER FORMATION 

our dreams, we could with impunity do what we 
dream? Is it not merely because we lie still, and 
do not stir, that we can indulge our fancies 1 

This dialogue sets forth an excellent point of view 
for differentiating the world of reality from the 
world of phantasy. It makes the differentiation on 
the basis of the criterion of actron. Ellis has said,^ 
** Dreams are real while they last; can we say more 
of life?" It may be said that the world of dreams 
is a real world but it is not a world of reality. The 
distinction is fundamental. Eeality calls forth ac- 
tion by the organism as a whole. It is analogous to 
the distinction that Sherrington^ draws as between 
the sense of taste and the sense of smell. Taste is 
an interoceptive sense which calls forth visceral re- 
sponses while smell, to the extent that it is an ex- 
teroceptive sense calls forth acts of locomotion for 
the purpose of relating the body to the source of the 
odour, moving the body towards or away from that 
source. 

It will be advantageous at this point to describe 
the dream mechanisms in the main as laid down by 
the epoch making work of Freud, ^*Die Tram- 
deutung."^ These interpretations have been elab- 
orated and worked over to a considerable extent but 
remain, in the main, as he formulated them. 

4 Cited by P. G. Stiles: "The Nervous System and Its Conserva- 
tion." W. B. Saunders Company, Philadelphia, 1914. 

5 Cited by C. J. Herrick : "An Introduction to Neurology, W. B. 
Saunders Company, Philadelphia, 1915. 

6 Eng. trans, by A. A. Brill: "The Interpretation of Dreams," 
The Macmillan Company, New York, 1913. 



DREAM MECHANISMS 127 

The dream always, nearly, uses as the material 
through which it expresses its meaning the experi- 
ences of the last waking state and it is largely be- 
cause of this fact that so many psychologists have 
insisted and still insist that the dream is the result 
of sensory experiences and can be modified by sen- 
sory stimuli more or less at will, as for example, 
the man who kicks the bed clothes otf at night and 
dreams of being in the Arctic regions. This is an 
example of the familiar fallacy of post hoc ergo 
propter hoc. The reason why the dream uses the 
material of the last waking state is perfectly plain. 
Something in the previous waking period by asso- 
ciational relationship has touched an important com- 
plex in the individual, stirred it into activity, which 
activity is expressed in the phantasy formation of 
the dream of that night. The process may be com- 
pared to the vibration of the A string on the piano. 
If one holds a vibrating A tuning fork over the harp 
it is the A string and only the A string which vi- 
brates, not the G nor the C, but only the A vibrates 
in harmony with the tuning fork. So when some 
event in the previous waking experience, so to speak, 
vibrates in harmony with some fact of great im- 
portance buried beneath the threshold of conscious- 
ness then that mental fact is stirred into activity, 
and that is why when it forms phantasies it uses the 
material which brought it into being. One of my 
patients had a dream that took him back to his youth 
and to a setting in which important matters, emo- 
tionally, took place in his child life. In the dream 



128 CHARACTER FORMATION 

he saw a grey fox, that was one of the central visuali- 
sations of the dream drama, but in his childhood 
days, although he had seen many foxes, he had never 
seen a grey fox. He had however seen red foxes. 
How does the fox of the dream come to be grey? 
He had been to the zoological park on the dream day 
and there seen grey foxes. Now is it not easy to see 
why? Because the fox stirred up an important as- 
sociation of emotional significance in his youth it 
started him to dream and although he had never 
seen other than a red fox in his youth the dream fox 
was grey because it was a grey fox the day before 
that had started the associations that stirred up the 
material out of which his dream was formed. 

The first thing that impresses us about the dream, 
when we come to examine its content, is its appar- 
ent triviality. If the dream as a matter of fact does 
deal with important matters in the life of the indi- 
vidual then the expressions it makes use of must be 
highly symbolic, i.e., must stand for some meaning 
other than their apparent meaning. This is true. 
The dream is symbolic in the sense of Ferenczi, 
namely, its origin is the unconscious. This we will 
understand when we realise that the dream is an 
excursion into the world of phantasy, the world of 
unreality, the world where the pleasure motive dom- 
inates. Now the pleasure motive as we have seen is 
opposed to the reality motive. Therefore if it is to 
come upon the stage and play its part it can only do 
so under the penalty of wearing a more or less com- 
plete disguise. The function of the dream is, in part 



DREAM MECHANISMS 129 

at least, to conserve sleep. And so the play of the 
pleasure motive must be sufficiently disguised so as 
not to awaken the dreamer. The pleasure motive, 
it will be seen, has been repressed as the reality mo- 
tive has come to the foreground, and therefore it is 
the repressed expressions of the pleasure motive 
that come forward to expression in the dream. In 
other words the dream is wish-fulfilling, as we have 
seen, and it also contains, as a rule, the expression 
of some mental fact which in the waking life has been 
repressed. For example: A gentleman told me 
that he awoke with a consciousness of having been 
dreaming, but he could not remember any of the 
dream. He only had a conviction that he had either 
used or heard used during the dream the word 
^* diathesis." Now he said he had never heard the 
word ^^ diathesis,'' in fact so far as he knew there 
was no such word, so he felt that he must be mistaken 
and that the word was probably ^^dieresis." He 
immediately got up and went to the dictionary to see 
whether there was such a word as *^ diathesis.'' I 
asked him what he found the word *^ diathesis" to 
mean and he said ^'a tendency to disease." I asked 
him what ^'dieresis" meant and he said that ^^diere- 
sis" was the mark that one made in writing indi- 
cating that something had been left out. Of course 
this is not the true meaning, but the significant thing 
is that it was the meaning to him. In the light of 
a little additional information the meaning of the 
dream became clear. The dreamer had been ill. 
The illness pointed pretty directly to the kidney as 



130 CHARACTER FORMATION 

the offending organ and he had been afraid that he 
had a tendency to kidney disease. This fear he had 
repressed, had refused to look it squarely in the face 
and to regulate his life accordingly, but had pre- 
ferred to act as if no such tendency existed, thereby 
endeavouring to delude himself into the belief that 
no such tendency in fact did exist. The dream shows 
the true state of affairs, shows his fear of kidney 
disease, the repression of this fear, and the wish that 
his ^^ diathesis," so to speak, might be eliminated, 
left out, which is the meaning that ^^dieresis'^ had 
for him. And so again in a simple dream fragment 
like this we get instantly, directly, and in a few mo- 
ments right at the heart of the question. We find 
out exactly the thing that is worrying him, worrying 
him so much in fact that to one who knew him it 
was perfectly apparent that something had gone 
wrong. 

It will be seen in this dream that the symbolism 
serves a very definite purpose, namely it clothes the 
dream in a language which is illogical to the dreamer. 
It therefore conserves sleep and permits the wish- 
fulfilling play to go on under such a disguise that 
the sleeper is not disturbed. The superficial aspect 
of the dream as the dreamer himself sees it and as 
he relates it is the manifest content of the dream. 
While the deeper meaning that lies behind the mani- 
fest content and which comes out when one is able 
to read the language of the dream is the latent con- 
tent and contains the true meaning of the dream. 
The change of the latent content into the material 



DEEAM MECHANISMS 131 

of the manifest content is accompanied with a great 
deal of distortion, and the symbolisms in the above 
example serve the purpose of this distortion of the 
latent content so that it is not recognised by the 
dreamer in the manifest content. 

Another important mechanism of distortion is dis- 
placement. This mechanism results in displacing 
the emotion from the place where it belongs to some 
other element of the dream and thus serving to dis- 
guise the true meaning. A patient, for example, 
dreamt that she was pushed by a man off the edge 
of a precipice at the base of which was a mass of 
writhing serpents. In relating this dream the im- 
pression was derived that she had been very much 
frightened, but on analysis quite the contrary de- 
veloped. There had been no special feeling of fear 
at all. The falling from the precipice into the mass 
of serpents was symbolic of a moral fall and should 
have created a great amount of emotion, but no such 
emotion existed in the dream, and therefore the 
dream is distorted to that extent and the possibility 
of its true meaning being known by the dreamer is 
greatly interfered with. The telling of the dream, 
however, which led to the impression that great fear 
had as a matter of fact been experienced was the 
result of another mechanism, namely the mechanism 
of secondary elaboration. After the dreamer awoke 
and remembered the dream, the dream naturally ap- 
peared senseless unless the emotion of fear or horror 
were attached to the experience, and therefore the 
waking consciousness in order to make the whole 



132 CHARACTER FORMATION 

thing appear logical attached the appropriate emo- 
tion where it belonged, giving meaning to what was 
otherwise without meaning. 

In describing the above mechanisms of dream 
formation it has been seen how the latent content is 
disguised before it is permitted to appear in the 
manifest content. This disguiseas brought about by 
what Freud terms the endopsycMc censor of con- 
sciousness. The censor permits only certain expres- 
sions to get into the dream. The thoughts of the 
patient can appear only under certain restrictions 
and under certain disguises. The distortion, the 
displacement, the symbolisation serve the purposes 
of this disguise. 

It must not be thought, however, that it is simply 
necessary to read the symbols of the dream in order 
to understand fully the latent content. The dream 
is a tremendous condensation of a vast amount of 
material, and all of the elements as they appear in 
the manifest content of the dream are determined 
from many sources — they are over determined. For 
example, an individual may appear in the dream 
who is entirely unknown to the dreamer, a person 
who does not look like any one he has ever seen be- 
fore. An analysis of the dream, however, may show 
that if the characteristics of this person are sepa- 
rately considered each of them belongs to a person 
known to the dreamer and that the dream person 
therefore is a sort of composite of these several char- 
acters which are united in this way to serve the pur- 



DREAM MECHANISMS 133 

poses of the dream. An example will illustrate some 
of these mechanisms. 

The patient dreamt that she was in a place of 
amusement, something like a circus, where there were 
crowds of people. She met many strange people, 
among others, a young lady to whom she took quite a 
fancy, and who invited her to stop in her home on 
the way back from the fair. She met there this 
young lady^s mother, and they were very pleasant 
and nice to her, so that she in turn invited the young 
lady to a party at her house. She seemed to be liv- 
ing in her present home. She also invited a man 
to the party at the same time, a man with red hair 
and blue eyes. Some time elapsed, and then she 
called on this girl, by invitation, for the afternoon. 
During this intervening time the girl had married 
and had a baby, and remodelled her home inside and 
out, and put in all modern conveniences. She took 
her through and showed her everything. They had 
a pleasant time, and she again invited the young lady 
to her home and told her to bring the baby along, 
and she also invited the red-haired man, who also 
had married in the meantime and had a child. He 
did not let her know, however, that he had married, 
as it would be a surprise. She and he were both 
surprised. The children were about the same age, 
and everybody had a good time at the party. 

In the course of the analysis of this dream it ap- 
pears that she had forgotten to tell all of it. The 
portion forgotten was that there was another man in 



134 CHARACTER FORMATION 

the dream, a dark-haired man, but she didn't seem 
to pay any attention to him. He seemed to have 
his back toward her. As far as she conld tell, he 
looked like two men that she had liked. 

We have here an example of condensation and 
identification. The yonng lady that the dreamer met 
at the place of entertainment, and whom she became 
friendly with, really represented herself in the 
dream. Let me give the reasons why, and some of 
these reasons are based npon things which I had 
learned in the analysis previous to the dream. 

She had, a few years previously, had a love affair 
with a young man with red hair and blue eyes, and 
he had asked her to marry him. She had refused, 
however, because she thought her duties at home 
required her to help care for her mother and sup- 
port the household while her brother was going 
through college. She had been introduced to this 
young man by another gentleman, and when this 
other gentleman found that matters were getting 
serious between the two, he had, unknown to her, a 
conversation with the red-haired man in which he 
advised him not to marry the patient, as he did not 
think they were suited to each other. Sometime 
after her refusal, the man who introduced them 
called her up on the telephone one evening and told 
her that the red-haired man was being married that 
night. This was, as may be imagined, a consider- 
able emotional experience. The dark man who stood 
with his back to her in the dream was the man who 
had introduced them, and this illustrates the point 



DEEAM MECHANISMS 135 

that Freud makes that the little addendum to the 
dream which had been forgotten in the original ac- 
count, usually contains the key to the situation. The 
young woman with the baby in the dream, who repre- 
sents, I say, the patient, is very completely disguised, 
so that the identification is not discernible. The 
patient herself was a woman with dark eyes and 
black hair. The young lady of the dream was a 
decided blonde. In addition to this, the dream girl 
was slender, while the patient is decidedly the op- 
posite (simple distortion by opposites). The dream 
girl was not accompanied by her husband, and he 
did not appear to enter at any point in the dream, 
either by reference or supposition or otherwise. In- 
cidentally too, the red-haired man was not accom- 
panied by his wife, and his wife appeared also to be 
as absent in fact as the husband of the girl. The 
girl also wore a tailor-made suit of a brown colour. 
The patient had had a tailor-made suit herself, but 
not of that colour, but she had had another dress that 
was of the same colour but was not tailor-made, and 
this dress which was the colour that the dream girl 
wore was the dress that she had worn upon the 
eventful night when she had had the disagreeable 
sexual experience which resulted in her psychosis. 
The patient also says that the dream girl acted as 
she might have acted, and had in the dream what she 
really wanted. Further complications are that the 
dream girl looked like the sister of the red-haired 
man, who was a woman who wanted to marry but 
did not want children or to keep house, while the 



136 CHARACTER FORMATION 

sister of the dark-haired man who introduced them 
had a light-haired baby boy. She experienced the 
feeling also that she was worried in the dream be- 
cause both of these people had babies and she did 
not, nor did she have any sweetheart, nor in fact did 
she have anything. The censor of consciousness 
made the disguise so complete tliat the patient could 
not recognise it and was therefore not disturbed by 
it. Further reasons for believing that this was an 
identification are, in the first place, the patient de- 
scribes herself in the dream as being present at the 
party but nobody paid any attention to her, nobody 
spoke to her, and the events of the party went on 
with apparently no one having anything to do with 
her — she was merely an onlooker. In other words, 
the dream had put her in the position where she could 
view herself and her acts. Then the dream girl 
had no husband, and the dream man had no wife. 
The two babies in the dream now have to be ac- 
counted for, and further emphasize the process of 
identification which is a phenomenon of the broader 
process of condensation, and still another process, 
that of decomposition. She had really been in love 
with this man and had regretted that she did not 
marry him. She therefore had the natural woman's 
wish of wanting his baby. The baby of the red- 
haired man in the dream had red hair and blue eyes. 
It is consequently evident that it is his baby, but 
how about the other baby of apparently the same 
age? The dark man who introduced the two had 
a sister who had a light-haired baby boy. Now this 



DREAM MECHANISMS 137 

boy tlie patient had been very fond of. It is there- 
fore quite evident that the two babies represented 
a decomposition product. The red-haired baby is the 
wish baby of the man with whom she was in love, 
the light-haired baby is the real baby for whom the 
patient had an affection. The patient, therefore, 
wished for the baby of the man she loved, for whom 
she might have the love and aifection that she had 
learned to have for the real baby that had been in 
her experience. The dream therefore expresses a 
wish for marriage to the man loved and a desire for 
his baby. 

Another very important type of dream to under- 
stand because of its very great importance to the 
dreamer is illustrated by the following example : A 
young man dreamt that he stood before a coffin in 
which his grandfather lay dead and as he stood 
there his grandfather's body moved and he turned 
his head to one side and appeared to be uneasy. I 
asked the dreamer what his grandfather meant to 
him and his reply was that his grandfather was his 
ideal man. So the meaning of the dream is plain. 
It meant for the dreamer that his ideal was dead, 
but that it did not rest easy in death. In other words, 
though dead it stirs and would live again. The 
dreamer instantly recognised the truth of this inter- 
pretation. He is a brilliantly endowed, active, keen- 
minded young man, cursed with enough money so 
that he does not have to put his nose to the grind- 
stone and do the daily task. He therefore leads a 
dilettante existence in which he finds no true, ade- 



138 CHARACTER FORMATION 

quate expression. His ideal is really dead, but in 
its death he is very unhappy. Here we see not only 
the meaning of the dream, but the tremendous im- 
portant teleologieal significance of it. The dream 
says to the dreamer, ''If you would be happy be up 
and doing, lead a life of usefulness, a life of accom- 
plishment, and only in such a life can you find fulfil- 
ment. ' ' 

Another example to show how the real vital worry 
of the individual may be read in the symbolism of 
the dream. The following is the dream, or perhaps 
a waking vision, for the individual claims that she 
was at least half awake, if not quite awake when it 
appeared. The percipient is a lady who some 
months ago while staying in Paris saw the follow- 
ing vision upon awaking one morning. From her 
bed where she lay she could look into the next room 
and see the piano. Standing behind the piano, 
therefore only with face and shoulders visible she 
saw a woman. This woman was very pale, with 
dark hair, and had a brown hat on. That was all 
there was of the vision. The woman did not look 
like any one she knew, and she had absolutely no 
conception that this vision had any meaning other 
than that probably the drapery was arranged in a 
certain way so that it easily fell into form and made 
the vision, as we know it often does. But that can- 
not of course be an explanation. There must be 
some reason why it took just exactly that particular 
form. So my first question was, '*What woman do 
you know who has a pale face?" Instantly she 



DREAM MECHANISMS 139 

mentioned the name of a young lady, an\i I said, 
^^How about the brown hatf and she said, ''I al- 
ways think of her in brown because that is most be- 
coming to her. ' ' I said then, ^ ' What does this young 
woman mean to you?" Her reply was that she al- 
ways thought of her wonderful power of mind. 
She thought of her as under head control, too much 
perhaps for her own good. Now the meaning of the 
vision is clear. The vision is that of a woman who 
symbolises for her one who is under head contr(^ 
as opposed to heart control, and therefore she sees 
only the head of the woman in the vision. The 
thing that was in her mind therefore is symbolised 
in this way. Why? The percipient is a widow 
whose children have reached adulthood and there- 
fore no longer require very much care on her part. 
She had only just sufficient means to take care of 
herself and absolutely no outlet for her activities 
or affections. She is temporarily stranded, so to 
speak, like a piece of driftwood on the shore. She 
would have an interest in life and the dream shows 
that her aspirations are reaching out for a head in- 
terest now that all those for whom she has affection 
have been settled in life. The dream deals with the 
problem of her aspirations, her reachings out to- 
ward higher things in life, her efforts at spiritual 
sublimation. 

We begin to get here into a still deeper meaning 
of the dream. We touch here upon its teleological 
significance. Here not only is the dream wish-ful- 
filling, but it gives us an idea of just what kind of 



140 CHARACTER FORMATION 

thing it is that will put matters right. It points the 
way in which that individual must go in order to 
find fulfilment, and it therefore becomes of tremen- 
dous value in offering hints, in fact definite direc- 
tions for the regulation of the life of the patient. 

This teleological character of the dream and some 
other points of interest and importance are well illus- 
trated by the dream of a patient who thought herself 
standing in front of a convent. Through a closed 
window, she saw a priest, her brother, putting on his 
surplice to go to hear confessions. The closed win- 
dow prevented them from talking. She started to 
go inside to hear him better but did not succeed in 
reaching him. She awoke very much depressed. 

Many years before the patient had been guilty of 
an indiscretion which was the occasion of her psy- 
chosis, a periodical depression. Although she had 
fully confessed she had always felt that she ought 
to confess to her brother. The brother died, how- 
ever, without her having accomplished her task in 
this respect. The dream shows all this and indi- 
cates very clearly, by the closed window, the obstacle, 
her brother's death, that stands in the way of re- 
solving her conflict. 

Maeder^ believes that the dream work itself en- 
deavours to accomplish the resolution of the con- 
flict and that the emotional state of the dreamer 
on awaking signifies whether it has or has not been 
successful. He says: ^^In the dream there is at 

7 Maeder, A. E. : The Dream Problem. Nervous and Mental Dis- 
ease, Monograph Series, No. 22. 



DREAM MECHANISMS 141 

work a preparatory arranging function which be- 
longs to the work of adjustment. ' ' In this case the 
fact that the dreamer awoke very much depressed 
is clearly indicative that the dream work had not 
been able to bring the conflict to a satisfactory ter- 
mination. 

Do dreams come true? is a question frequently 
asked. The answer is really quite simple. The 
dream itself represents a wish-fulfilment and if the 
wish is sufficiently strong to force the individual to 
try to bring it to pass it is perfectly easy to see 
that the dream may come true, that therefore the 
dream may have a prelusory function which may 
often be quite clearly defined. A patient, a surgeon, 
has a dream which clearly indicates his jealousy of 
a more successful confrere. In other words he en- 
vies him, wishes he had his push and efficiency. To 
the extent that he keeps progressing in his ability 
as a surgeon the dream will come true. 

The prelusory character of the dream is, however, 
often not so clear as this. The woman, whose case 
was just cited, wished to confess to her brother. 
But her brother was dead. How can such a wish 
as that be brought to pass! She succeeded by sym- 
bolising the physician as her brother and confessing 
to him. This is a solution of the conflict by resym- 
bolization in the sense of Bertschinger.^ The 
process here is not quite so plain but it is plain how 
the dream expressed both the wish and the failure to 

8 Bertschinger, H. : Processes of Recovery in Schizophrenics. 
The Psychoanalytic Review, Vol. III. No. 2, April, 1915. 



142 CHARACTER FORMATION 

bring it to pass. It is probable that in sucb ex- 
pressions as this we have hints of the very greatest 
therapeutic value. 

To summarise : we have come to see that the dream 
is a wish-fulfilling dramatisation. Although words 
and sentences and speech occur in dreams they are 
for the most part visual in content. We have further 
seen that the dream takes its immediate origin from 
the events of the previous waking state and uses 
these events to clothe the dream thoughts. These 
thoughts which constitute the latent content of the 
dream are disguised in the process of appearing in 
the manifest content, principally by the mechanisms 
of distortion and displacement, and finally by the 
secondary elaboration of the waking consciousness. 
These thoughts appear as a result of these distort- 
ing mechanisms as a rule in a highly symbolic form, 
and it is necessary to learn to read the symbols in 
order to understand the dream. As a result of this 
distortion the dream thoughts as they appear in 
the manifest content have a surface value quite dif- 
ferent from their real value, so that the real dream 
thoughts undergo in the dream a ^ ' transvaluation 
of values." The emotions, however, remain the 
same, but are displaced in the manifest content of 
the dream. So we find experiences that should be 
emotional without emotion, and inconsequential hap- 
penings emotionally ladened. This latter circum- 
stance has led to the generalisation that the affect is 
the only truth of the dream. The reason for the 
distortion and disguising of the dream thoughts be- 



DREAM MECHANISMS 143 

fore they appear in the manifest content is that they 
refer to desires or wishes of the individual which 
have been repressed as being inacceptable to the 
waking consciousness. One of the functions of the 
dream is to conserve sleep. Therefore the endo- 
psychic censor of consciousness insists upon the dis- 
guise of these repressed desires, otherwise by their 
surprising or perhaps horrifying non-conformity 
with the percipient's waking consciousness they 
would cause him to awake. There are a few dreams 
which show the sleep-conserving wish-fulfilling 
mechanisms with regard to matters that are not re- 
pressed and therefore not distorted, more particu- 
larly such dreams as the so-called * ^ convenience 
dreams," a dream for example in which a person 
who is thirsty at night dreams of drinking quanti- 
ties of water, thereby slaking his thirst and con- 
tinuing to sleep. 

In addition to the above characteristics of the 
dream, Freud, by a series of exquisite analyses, has 
sought to demonstrate that the dream can arise only 
on the basis of infantile repressed material, in other 
words that the wishes that are in or near to con- 
sciousness must touch at some point and harmonise 
with the repressed, long-forgotten infantile desires, 
and that it is only when this situation arises that a 
dream occurs and that the dream represents the ful- 
filment of hotJi wishes. 

It will be seen from the above, therefore, that the 
dream shows what is really going on in the person- 
ality, that through it it is possible to attain to the 



144 CHARACTER FORMATION 

real thougMs of the individual, and that if it is pos- 
sible to analyse the dream, not only will an immense 
amount of material be uncovered which would be 
largely hidden otherwise, but that it is possible to 
penetrate to the very depths of the personality, even 
into the realm of the unconscious, the long since 
forgotten, the infantile. In the neuroses, the psy- 
choneuroses, and the psychoses this sort of informa- 
tion is of the utmost importance and is the only 
way in which one can get at an understanding of 
the symptoms which on the surface appear so illogi- 
cal and unmeaning. The analysis of dreams, there- 
fore, becomes a matter of vital importance in dealing 
with mental disorders. 



CHAPTER VII 
THE FAMILY ROMANCE 

In the preceding chapters the more important 
mechanisms of distortion have been discussed that 
result in a transvaluation of values of the psychic 
content and many illustrations have been given by 
dreams and in the chapter on symbolism to show 
how these transvalued values come to symbolic ex- 
pression. Of prime importance is the understanding 
of this play of forces as they touch the relations of 
the developing child to the members of the family 
who immediately surround it during the first years 
of its life. 

As Fiske ^ long ago pointed out, one of the char- 
acteristics of an advanced civilisation is the pro- 
longation of the period of infancy, the period of 
helplessness of the child. This tends to keep the 
parents together for longer and longer periods which 
tend more and more to permanency for when the 
older children grow up there are still younger ones 
needing this protection. Then when the parent dies 
the family unit is kept intact by the taking over of 
the responsibilities for its maintenance by the oldest, 

1 Fiske, John : "Outlines of Cosmic Pliilosopliy," Houghton, 
MiflSin and Company, Boston and New York, 1894. 

145 



146 CHARACTER FORMATION 

bravest or most sagacious male. Thus grows up 
a group that is bound together by internal bonds of 
affection and interest that are stronger than the ties 
that ally it to other groups with whom, however, it 
may combine for mutual protection. These bonds 
not only become stronger during successive epochs, 
but, enduring from birth to death they acquire a 
traditional value, passing on from generation to 
generation and so building up a body of customs 
(mores) which make certain demands in the way 
of ** setting up permanent reciprocal necessities of 
behaviour among the members of the group ; in this 
way the ultimate test of right and wrong action 
came to be the welfare of the community, instead 
of the welfare of the individual. ' ' Fiske further 
states a most important corollary of this process 
by adding ^ ^ the long process of social evolution, thus 
inaugurated, has all along reacted upon individual 
evolution, by increasing the power of mental repre- 
sentation, and nourishing sympathy at the expense 
of egoism.'' 

This gradual development of the family unit is 
of the utmost importance for the impressions that 
are stamped upon the child mind during his period 
of infancy as a member of the family group are 
pregnant with the possibilities for his future suc- 
cess or failure, they are at the foundation of his 
later expressed traits of character. 

Every force is equally powerful for good or bad, 
energy which may be used for building up may, in 
the same degree, be used for tearing down, and so 



THE FAMILY ROMANCE 147 

the knitting together of the members of the family 
that has had so much to do with the possibilities of 
social progress may, by fostering dependency, 
through excessive solicitude or prolongation of over- 
sight into adulthood, destroy that capacity for indi- 
vidual initiative upon which progress likewise 
depends. 

In the life history of every individual who grows 
to adulthood there comes a time when he must 
emancipate himself from the thraldom of the home. 
He must break away from his infantile moorings, go 
forth into the world of reality and win there a place 
for himself. By this I do not mean a mere circum- 
stantial leaving of the home, but an actual growing 
away from it in feeling so that there remains no 
crippling attachment to interfere with personal free- 
dom of expression. He must leave it in his feelings, 
he must put aside his childhood, put aside his infan- 
tile attachments and conquer his own world. While 
this is necessary for the fullest development it is 
extremely painful and many persons never accom- 
plish it at all. They are the future neurotics. 

The previous chapters have prefaced the way for 
an understanding of how the protection of the home 
may be retained in later life by a symbolisation of 
the persons or things in the environment to repre- 
sent features of that home protection. For example, 
a young man will pick out a woman to marry who 
stands symbolically for his mother, or commonly a 
young woman will marry a man who represents 
symbolically her father. In this way a hold is re- 



148 CHARACTER FORMATION 

tained on the protection of the parents, but at the 
expense of continuing infantilism. 

In order that the effects of the family situation on 
the child may be more clearly seen, and the way those 
effects are woven into the character understood, it 
will be well at this point to consider w^hat has been 
termed the ^ ^family neurotic romance." The adjec- 
tive neurotic has come over from the therapeusis of 
the neuroses. One of the facts that was earliest 
appreciated in the psychoanalytic treatment of neu- 
rotics was that the neurosis represented an infantile 
attachment to the family situation. It is, I think, 
nevertheless best left out. We all go through the 
same process of development. Whether we become 
neurotics or not is not dependent upon the elements 
in that process but how we are able to deal with 
those elements. So the family romance, as I would 
prefer to call it, is the story of us all, in our rela- 
tions to the parents or their surrogates, and of our 
devices to develop away from our infantile attach- 
ments to true adulthood. Certain mental mechan- 
isms have to be developed to suppress— repress — 
the attachments to the family group in so far as 
they are crippling and interfere with that measure 
of individual development and efficiency which en- 
able one to break loose from its protection and the 
feeling of security which it offers, and go forward 
into the world of reality, self-reliant and capable and 
form a new group in which the same problems, the 
same conflicts will find similar expressions over again 
but with the added possibility that the end result 



THE FAMILY KOMANCE 149 

may be advanced, just a little, to a higher plane of 
cultural development. 

The prolongation of the period of dependence 
upon the parents is at once the cause and the effect 
of the greater demands of life upon the individual 
who must therefore take longer in preparing to meet 
these demands. This very means, however, becomes 
dangerous by prolonging the feeling of security 
which becomes ever more difficult to cut loose from 
as time goes on. Individual development and '^herd 
instinct" stand ever opposed to each other, the 
former prompted by that spirit of adventure which 
would reach out for new experiences in the world of 
reality, the latter, the repository of those uncon- 
scious trends upon which the integrity of the group 
depends. 

As at the physiological level the problem of the 
metabolism of carbohydrates has to be met by the 
development of certain glands and their secretions, 
so at the psychological level the problem of emanci- 
pation from the home has to be met by the develop- 
ment of certain symbols and psychological mechan- 
isms. The further ramifications of this process of 
emancipation can best be appreciated by a consider- 
ation of the so-called (Edipus and Electra Complexes, 

CEdipus was the son of Laius, King of Thebes and 
of Jocasta. Laius had been informed by the oracle 
that he would perish at the hands of his son. Jo- 
casta was accordingly ordered by Laius to destroy 
her son as soon as he was born but she had not the 
courage to obey this command but instead gave it 



150 CHAKACTER FORMATION 

to one of her domestics with orders to expose him. 
The servant bored the child's feet and hung him 
by the heels, with a twig, from a tree on Mount 
Cithseron where he was found by one of the shep- 
herds of Polybus, King of Corinth. The shepherd 
carried him home where Peribcea the wife of Poly- 
bus, being herself without children, brought him up 
as her own child. The boy grew up to be very 
accomplished and the envy of his companions, one 
of whom told him he was illegitimate. Peribcea 
responded to his questions by telling him his doubts 
were ill-founded but he was not satisfied and went 
to consult the oracle at Delphi. He was told not to 
return home for if he did he would be the murderer 
of his father and the husband of his mother. As 
the home of Polybus was the only home he knew he 
resolved not to return to Corinth so set out towards 
Phocis. On the road he met Laius who haughtily 
demanded the right of way. CEdipus refused and 
after a short dispute a contest ensued in which Laius 
was killed. Of course CEdipus did not know whom he 
had killed and so continued his journey being at- 
tracted towards Thebes by the fame of the Sphynx. 
This monster was laying waste the country and de- 
voured all who failed to answer correctly the enig- 
mas he proposed. As the successful solution of the 
riddle proposed would result in the death of the 
Sphynx, Creon, who had become King on the death 
of Laius, promised his crown and Jocasta to who- 
ever would succeed. CEdipus succeeded. The 
Sphynx dashed his head against a rock and perished. 



THE FAMILY ROMANCE 151 

and CEdipus succeeded to the throne of Thebes, and 
married Jocasta by whom he had two sons and two 
daughters. Some years after a plague visited the 
Theban territories and the oracle declared that it 
would cease only when the murderer of King Laius 
had been banished from Boeotia. (Edipus resolved 
to institute the most careful inquiries. He was suc- 
cessful and was proved to be the murderer of his 
father. This discovery was soon followed by the 
added realisation that he had committed incest with 
his mother. In his great grief he put out his eyes 
as unworthy to see the light and banished himself 
from Thebes. The oracle had been fulfilled. He 
was led by his daughter Antigone towards Attica 
and came near Colonus where there was a fire sacred 
to the Furies. He remembered that he had been 
doomed by the oracle to die in such a place and to 
become the source of prosperity to the country in 
which his bones were buried. He sent for Theseus, 
king of the country, told him when he arrived of what 
had been ordained and walked to the spot where he 
was to expire. The earth opened and (Edipus dis- 
appeared. 

This is the story of (Edipus. The story of Electra 
runs as follows : Clytemnestra was the wife of Aga- 
memnon, king of Argos. "When Agamemnon went 
to the Trojan war Clytemnestra contracted an in- 
trigue with ^gysthus, whom he had left to take care 
of his domestic affairs, and publicly lived with him. 
Agamemnon heard of this and returned to take his 
revenge. Clytemnestra and ^gysthus, however, 



152 CHARACTER FORMATION 

succeeded in surprising him and murdered both him 
and Cassandra whom he had brought with him from 
Troy. Orestes, his son, would have shared his 
father's fate but for his sister Electra who suc- 
ceeded in removing him to a place of safety. Sub- 
sequently she incited her brother, Orestes, to avenge 
her father's death by assassinating his mother 
Clytemnestra. 

These two stories show, the CEdipus story, certain 
elements in the relation between mother and son, 
the Electra story, certain elements in the relation 
of father and daughter, which it is important to 
dilate somewhat upon. 

In the first place, the mere statement that a story 
that deals with the murder of a father by the son 
and then the incest of that son with the mother, or 
a story that deals with a daughter who caused the 
murder of her own mother because that mother had 
robbed her of her father, should contain elements 
that were worth while considering for the purpose 
of throwing light upon the relations between parents 
and children will be received with horror by the 
average person unacquainted with psychoanalytic 
literature. 

In order to become properly oriented towards the 
fundamental nature of the attachment of the child 
to the several members of the family it is necessary 
to bear in mind two principles that are controlling. 
In the first place this attachment is a growth which 
has its beginnings as soon as the child is born, its 
ground plan is laid down in the first years of de- 



THE FAMILY ROMANCE 153 

velopment, its driving force comes from the great 
region of the unconscious. The way in which the 
child first learns to love those about him is the pro- 
totype for all future loves, the paradigm into which 
they must fit. 

And secondly : the great creative force, the libido, 
in the last analysis, has only two problems — the 
problem of self-preservation and the problem of the 
perpetuation of the race. The libido devoted to the 
solution of the first of these problems is the nutri- 
tive libido, that devoted to the latter is the sexual 
libido. All love has as its fundamental object race 
perpetuation and is therefore sexual, it matters not 
how far removed its particular manifestation may 
seem to be from actual concrete sexual expression. 
We must, therefore, be prepared to find, and it has 
been so found, that the attachment of the child to 
those about is fundamentally a sex attachment, a 
fact which is at once brought out by the fact that, 
in general, the child is more strongly attached to 
the parent of the opposite sex. Herein lies the basis 
of the problem of incest, a problem that has vexed 
all peoples throughout time and has been the occa- 
sion of some of the most important and powerful 
of social institutions. 

Incest has always been practised to some extent. 
But while to-day the mere thought of such relations 
fills us with horror there is much evidence that it 
was not always so. In fact, under certain circum- 
stances at least, incest was not only permitted, but 
was the accepted mode of procedure. In those tribes 



154 CHARACTER FORMATION 

in whicli descent was along the female line a man 
was king only in virtue of the fact that he was hus- 
band of the queen. When the queen died he would 
automatically have ceased to reign unless he married 
the heir to the throne, who in such a case was his 
own daughter, and that is exactly what he did. 
Public feeling must indeed have been very differently 
oriented towards incest in those days when kings 
set such an example, but we must not forget that 
among the primitive people who live among us, the 
idiots, imbeciles, and feeble-minded, incest is often 
freely practised. 

That the problem of incest has always interested 
mankind, however, is shown by the fact that among 
the most primitive peoples known there already exist 
certain marriage taboos which when studied are 
easily shown to be directed against incest. In fact 
the whole complex social institution of totemism has 
as one of its main ends the solution of the incest 
problem. To put it in a few words, totemism divides 
the tribes into separate phratries, and marriages 
are strictly prohibited between members of the same 
phratry. We have already indicated, briefly 
(Chapter III), how the development of the tote- 
mistic scheme by the successive splitting of the tribe 
into smaller and smaller groups had the result of 
more and more effectually preventing the marriage 
of near kin. 

It is both interesting and instructive to learn that 
the incest taboos arose, in some instances at least, 
among people who had not yet discovered the rela- 



THE FAMILY KOMANCE 155 

tion between impregnation and sexual intercourse. 
Its roots in the child similarly antedate any such 
knowledge. 

We have seen how the infant, confronted by the 
insistent demands of reality, longs to return to its 
previous state of protection as it existed in the ma- 
ternal body. In other words how it seeks to with- 
draw from reality, to escape its demands. Now our 
horror of incest is our conscious expression of our 
desire to do that very sort of thing. 

The thesis of this chapter is that in the life his- 
tory of every individual who grows to adulthood 
there comes a time when he must emancipate himself 
from the thraldom of the home. He must break 
away from his infantile moorings, and go forth into 
the world of reality and win there a place for him- 
self. This is not to be understood to mean that he 
must simply physically leave the home, that is not 
at all necessary, but he must leave it in his feelings, 
he must put aside his childhood, put aside his infan- 
tile attachments and conquer his own world. While 
this is necessary it is extremely painful, and many 
persons never accomplish it. They are the future 
neurotics. 

Incest, then, from this broad standpoint is really 
the attraction to the home that keeps us infantile, 
it represents the anchor that must be weighed if 
we are ever to fulfil the best that is in us. Incest, 
however, as it appears to us in our everyday think- 
ing is clothed in the garments of adult sexuality and 
excites loathing, horror, disgust. Why? Because 



156 CHARACTER FORMATION 

the path of escape from reality is broad and easy to 
find, it is the path downwards and backwards by 
which the individual tries to retain the protection 
of the parents and the home, and so something of 
his old safety. It is a path open to all of us, and 
because it is so easy to take we must defend our- 
selves from it with the stronge^st of emotions. The 
horror we feel for incest in this sense does not mean 
that we are so far removed from its possibility, it 
rather means that we sense it as a real present 
danger, and are obliged to bring up all our reserves 
to beat it back. Herein lies the pragmatic value of 
the antipathic emotions. 

That a clearer idea may be had of the exact sym- 
bols and mechanisms that are used to effect this 
emancipation I will take up the several specific rela- 
tionships seriatim. And first : 

The Relations of Children to Parents. — I can do no 
better in outlining this problem than to quote 
Eank's^ summary of the family romance in his 
masterly analysis of the myth of the birth of the 
hero. 

*^The detachment of the growing individual from 
the authority of the parents is one of the most neces- 
sary, but also one of the most painful achievements 
of evolution. It is absolutely necessary for this 
detachment to take place, and it may be assumed 
that all normal grown individuals have accomplished 
it to a certain extent. Social progress is essentially 

2 Rank, O. : The Myth of the Birth of the Hero. Nervous and 
Mental Disease, Monograph Series, No. 18. 



THE FAMILY ROMANCE 157 

based upon this opposition between the two genera- 
tions. On the other hand, there exists a class of 
neurotics whose condition indicates that they have 
failed to solve this very problem. For the young 
child, the parents are in the first place the sole au- 
thority, and the source of all faith. To resemble 
them, i.e., the progenitor of the same sex; to grow up 
like father and mother, this is the most intense and 
portentous wish of the child's early years. Progres- 
sive intellectual development naturally brings it about 
that the child gradually becomes acquainted with 
the category to which the parents belong. Other 
parents become known to the child, who compares 
these with his own, and thereby becomes justified in 
doubting the incomparability and uniqueness with 
which he had invested them. Trifling occurrences 
in the life of the child, which induce a mood of dis- 
satisfaction, lead up to a criticism of the parents, 
and the gathering conviction that other parents are 
preferable in certain ways, is utilised for this atti- 
tude of the child toward the parents. From the psy- 
chology of the neuroses, we have learned that very 
intense emotions of sexual rivalry are also involved 
in this connection. The causative factor evidently is 
the feeling of being neglected. Opportunities arise 
only too frequently when the child is neglected, or 
at least feels himself neglected, when he misses the 
entire love of the parents, or at least regrets having 
to share the same with the other children of the 
family. The feeling that one's own inclinations are 
not entirely reciprocated seeks its relief in the idea 



158 CHARACTER FORMATION 

— often consciously remembered from very early 
years — of being a stepchild, or an adopted child. 
Many persons who have not become neurotics, very 
frequently remember occasions of this kind, when 
the hostile behaviour of parents was interpreted and 
reciprocated by them in this fashion, usually under 
the influence of story books. The influence of sex 
is already evident, in so far as the boy shows a far 
greater tendency to harbour hostile feeling against 
his father than his mother, with a much stronger 
inclination to emancipate himself from the father 
than from the mother. The imaginative faculty of 
girls is possibly much less active in this respect. 
These consciously remembered psychic emotions of 
the years of childhood supply the factor which per- 
mits the interpretation of the myth. What is not 
often consciously remembered, but can almost invari- 
ably be demonstrated through psychoanalysis, is 
the next stage in the development of this incipient 
alienation from the parents, which may be desig- 
nated by the term Family Romance of Neurotics. 
The essence of neurosis, and of all higher mental 
qualifications, comprises a special activity of the 
imagination which is primarily manifested in the 
play of the child, and which from about the period 
preceding puberty takes hold of the theme of the 
family relations. A characteristic example of this 
special imaginative faculty is represented by the 
familiar day dreams,^ which are continued until long 

3 Compare Freud, "Hysterical Fancies, and Their Relations to 
Bisexuality," for references to the literature on this subject. This 



THE FAMILY ROMANCE 159 

after puberty. Accurate observation of these day 
dreams shows that they serve for fulfilment of 
wishes, for the righting of life, and that they have 
two essential objects, one erotic, the other of an 
ambitious nature (usually with the erotic factor 
concealed therein.) About the time in question the 
child's imagination is engaged upon the task of get- 
ting rid of the parents, who are now despised and 
are as a rule to be supplanted by others of a higher 
social rank. The child utilises an accidental coin- 
cidence of actual happenings (meetings with the lord 
of the manor, or the proprietor of the estate, in the 
country; with the reigning prince, in the city; in 
the United States with some great statesman, mil- 
lionaire). Accidental occurrences of this kind 
arouse the child's envy, and this finds its expression 
in fancy fabrics which replace the two parents by 
others of a higher rank. The technical elaboration 
of these two imaginings, which, of course, by this 
time have become conscious, depends upon the 
child's adroitness, and also upon the material at his 
disposal. It likewise enters into consideration, if 
these fancies are elaborated with more or less claim 
to plausibility. This stage is reached at a time when 
the child is still lacking all knowledge of the sexual 
conditions of descent. With the added knowledge 
of the manifold sexual relations of father and 
mother; with the child's realisation of the fact that 

contribution is contained in the second series of the Collection of 
Short Articles on the Neurosis Doctrine, Vienna and Leipsig, 1909, 
tr. in Nerv. and Ment. Dis., Monog. Se., No. 4. 



160 CHARACTER FORMATION 

the father is always uncertain, whereas the mother 
is very certain — the family romance undergoes a 
peculiar restriction; it is satisfied with ennobling 
the father, while the descent from the mother is no 
longer questioned, but accepted as an unalterable 
fact. The second (or sexual) stage of the family 
romance is moreover supported by another motive, 
which did not exist in the first or asexual stage. 
Knowledge of sexual matters gives rise to the tend- 
ency of picturing erotic situations and relations, 
impelled by the pleasurable emotion of placing the 
mother, or the subject of the greatest sexual curios- 
ity, in the situation of secret unfaithfulness and 
clandestine love affairs. In this way the primary or 
asexual fantasies are raised to the standard of the 
improved later understanding. 

^ ^ The motive of revenge and retaliation which was 
originally in the front, is again evident. These neu- 
rotic children are mostly those who were punished 
by the parents, to break them of bad sexual habits, 
and they take their revenge upon their parents by 
their imaginings. The younger children of a family 
are particularly inclined to deprive their predeces- 
sors of their advantage by fables of this kind (ex- 
actly as in the intrigues of history). Frequently 
they do not hesitate in crediting the mother with as 
many love affairs as there are rivals. An interest- 
ing variation of this family romance restores the 
legitimacy of the plotting hero himself, while the 
other children are disposed of in this way as illegiti- 
mate. The family romance may be governed be- 



THE FAMILY ROMANCE 161 

sides by a special interest, all sorts of inclinations 
being met by its adaptability and variegated char- 
acter. The little romancer gets rid in this fashion, 
for example, of the kinship of a sister, who may 
have attracted him sexually. 

^ * Those who turn aside with horror from this cor- 
ruption of the child mind, or perhaps actually con- 
test the possibility of such matters, should note that 
all these apparently hostile imaginings have not such 
a very bad significance after all, and that the original 
affection of the child for his parents is still pre- 
served under their thin disguise. The faithlessness 
and ingratitude on the part of the child are only 
apparent, for on investigating in detail the most 
common of these romantic fancies, namely the sub- 
stitution of both parents, or of the father alone, by 
more exalted personages — the discovery will be made 
that these new and high-born parents are invested 
throughout with the qualities which are derived 
from real memories of the true lowly parents, so 
that the child does not actually remove his father 
but exalts him. The entire endeavour to replace 
the real father hy a more distinguished one is merely 
the expression of the child's longing for the vanished 
happy time, when his father still appeared to he the 
strongest and greatest man, and the mother seemed 
the dearest and most beautiful woman. 

*'The child turns away from the father, as he now 
knows him, to the father in whom he believed in his 
earlier years, his imagination being in truth only 
the expression of regret for this happy time having 



162 CHARACTER FORMATION 

passed away. Thus the over-valuation of the ear- 
liest years of childhood again claims its own in these 
fancies.* An interesting contribution to this sub- 
ject is furnished by the study of dreams. Dream- 
interpretation teaches that even in later years, in 
the dreams of the emperor or the empress, these 
princely persons stand for the ^father and mother. 
Thus the infantile over-valuation of the parents is 
still preserved in the dream of the normal adult. ' ' 

The symbols and mechanisms used are then seen 
to be symbols and mechanisms utilised to go onward 
and upward in the process of development in a direc- 
tion that takes the individual further and further 
away from the protection of the family group and 
more and more towards the goal of individual self- 
sufficiency. The process is but an exemplification 
of the unfolding of the creative energy which ever 
drives on in the path of development to the com- 
pletest self-realisation and fulfilment. 

In order to understand the symbols and mechan- 
isms, however, we must not make the mistake of 
interpreting them in the terms of the adult con- 
sciousness but must constantly bear in mind their 
origin in the infantile unconscious. Thus in dreams 
of the death of the parent of the same sex it is 
wrong to assume at once that the child, the dreamer, 
desires the actual death of the parent as we under- 

4 For the idealising of the parents by the children, compare 
Maeder's comments (Jahr. f. Psychoanalyse, p. 152, and Central- 
hlatt f. Psychoanalyse, I, p. 51), on Varendonk's essay, Les ideals 
d' enfant, Tome VII, 1908. 



THE FAMILY ROMANCE 163 

stand death. Death to the child has always been a 
mere going away. The real meaning of death is not 
understood until relatively late in development. 
Thus one child, cited by Freud,^ a boy of ten, fol- 
lowing the death of his father said: ^'I understand 
that father is dead, but I cannot see why he does 
not come home to supper. '^ This is a typical in- 
stance and shows that the dream of the death of a 
parent is to be understood as meaning, not actual 
death, but the elimination of that influence of the 
parent which is biologically hampering to personal 
development. 

A very little experience in the analysis of the inner 
thinking of persons will disclose manifold ways in 
which the attachment to the parent comes to expres- 
sion. Men and women constantly pick out for their 
partners in life those who represent symbolically 
their mother or their father. In other words the 
mate is a mother or father image which means, of 
course, that they need not bear any close resemblance 
to the eyes of an outsider but they do resemble the 
mother or father image that was built during the 
infancy of the child when the father was the greatest 
and most powerful of men and the mother was the 
most lovable and beautiful woman. 

It is very frequent among neurotics to find that 
an early unfortunate love affair was with such a 
person. It is of great interest to read in the report 
of the Chicago Vice Commission^ that of 103 girls 

5 "The Interpretation of Dreams." 



164 CHARACTER FORMATION 

(prostitutes) examined the history was that the 
first sexual irregularity of 51 was with their own 
father. One must necessarily wonder how much of 
this was really true and how much was the result of 
a wish-fulfilling phantasy of individuals essentially 
infantile in development. Certainly false accusa- 
tions, and we know only too well, false convictions, 
especially for sexual crimes, have grown only too 
frequently, out of the phantasies of neurotic girls. 
The extent to which such extravagances can go is 
well shown from the records of the trials of witches, 
and the like are matters of history. 

One of the most common ways in which the love 
for the parent of the opposite sex is exhibited in 
later life is by identification with the parent of the 
same sex. In phantasy the girl secures the love of 
the father by identifying herself with her mother 
and the boy secures the love of the mother by identi- 
fying himself with the father. It is remarkable, 
when one inquires into it, how frequently we see an 
individual repeating the history of the parent of the 
same sex, going through a similar course of develop- 
ment, developing the same illnesses, exhibiting the 
same weaknesses. This is all generally explained 
by heredity but heredity is still only a word, an 
hypothesis, and while perhaps it has much truth to 
its credit, still this other way of looking at the facts 
gives the values that always come from a new point 
of view and serves to explain many of the more 
subtle nuances in a much more satisfactory way. 

A recent patient of mine, for example, had had 



THE FAMILY ROMANCE 165 

her first and unfortunate sex experience with a man 
who was clearly the father image. In addition to 
this she became depressed and apprehensive about 
the same period in life as did her mother, following 
the death of her husband, which again followed the 
lead of the mother whose depression came after the 
death of her husband. The mother died in an asy- 
lum and the patient had for years been afraid that 
she would lose her mind and suffer a like fate. The 
love for the father image and the identification with 
the mother are here both clearly in evidence. It is 
in such mechanisms as these that we see the explana- 
tion of the fact that neurotics tend to marry near 
relatives, a fact analysed by Abraham.*^ 

The ambivalent type of reaction is quite as fre- 
quently in evidence. Here it is not so much a ques- 
tion of the love of the parent of the opposite sex 
as it is hate of the parent of the same sex. More 
frequently, however, the hate is displayed towards 
the father rather than the mother, because it is he, 
who, during the infancy of the individual, has rep- 
resented, in the family situation, the final source of 
all authority. 

This ambivalent hate is shown in extreme form 
in the paranoiac who resists all authority to such an 
extent that he is quite unable to live in the world 
as it is and finds it necessary to build up an arti- 

7 Abraham, Karl: Die Stellung der Verwandtenehe 4n der Psy- 
chologie der Neurosen. Jalirb> f. Psychoanalytische u. Psycliopatli. 
Forschungen. Abstract in the Psychoanalytic Review, Vol. III. 
No. I, January, 1916. 



166 CHARACTER FORMATION 

ficial delusional world in which he overcomes the 
authority of the father in the completest possible 
way by supplanting him, taking his place, and there- 
by himself becoming the source of all authority. 
Thus develop, side by side, the characteristic traits 
of the paranoiac — the delusions of persecution and 
th6 delusions of grandeur. It^is such mechanisms 
as are at the bottom of extreme types of anarchists 
and finally the regicides. These people from being 
simply resistant to authority are actively engaged 
in trying to tear it down, to destroy it, even to the 
extent of assassinating those in whom authority is 
temporarily vested. 

A still different method of dealing with the hate 
and desire for death of the rival (father for in- 
stance), is to completely disguise these feelings by 
expressions of great solicitude for his health and 
safety. Thus the real feelings and wishes are 
covered over by their opposites — tenderness and 
solicitude. 

The mother-in-law — The age-old conflict between 
son-in-law and mother-in-law^ is founded on this 
same motive. The path to the love object proceeds 
from the love of the parent, in this case the mother, 
and when finally brought to an apparently success- 
ful issue, with the mother image sufficiently re- 
pressed, is suddenly again stirred to activity by the 
mother-in-law, who, because of her resemblance to 
the wife plus her greater age, calls up again the 

8 Freud: "Totem und Tabu." An abstract of Freud's views in 
Brill: "Psyclianalysis/' W. B. Saunders Company, 1912. 



THE FAMILY ROMANCE 167 

mother image in a concrete form which had been un- 
recognised in the wife. 

Relations of brothers and sisters^The jealousy of chil- 
dren of the same family among themselves is pro- 
verbial as is also the jealousy of an only child when 
a new baby arrives in the household. This jealousy 
is expressed by very young children in a perfectly 
frank manner. For example little Hans^ said 
simply, ^'I don't want a little sister. '* 

The basis of this jealousy is, of course, that the 
newcomer takes away some of the love of the mother 
that before had been possessed without a rival. 

The extent to which children feel and express 
their jealousy and hate towards rivals is well shown 
in the case cited by Hall ^^ of the perfectly normal 
little girl who was found dancing on the grave of 
her nearest friend and singing exultantly, ^^I am so 
glad she is dead and I am alive." We know too of 
the very frequent crimes of violence and murders 
committed by children. They can only be under- 
stood when we take into account these mechanisms 
and realise the unconscious and infantile way of 
thinking and do not try to judge them according to 
adult standards. The child is phylogenetically in 
the savage stage of development and his standards 
belong to that period of human evolution. 

9 Freud: Analyse der Phobic eines fiinfjahrigen Knaben. Jahrb. 
f. psychoan, u. psychopath, Forschungen, Vol. I. Abstract in the 
Psychoanalytic Review, Vol. Ill, No. I, Jan., 1916. 

10 Hall, G. Stanley: "Adolescence," Vol. I. D. Appleton & Co., 
1904. 



168 CHARACTER FORMATION 

The loves and hates, jealousies and conflicts be- 
tween brothers and sisters are but expressions of 
this attachment to the parents once removed. The 
sister is the incarnation of the mother image, the 
brother the incarnation of the father image — symbols 
used by the libido in its unremitting efforts to loose 
itself for flights of ever increasing freedom. 

The Grandparents.il — Here we have another, 
though somewhat more complicated variant of the 
parent image. By transferring the incestuous long- 
ings to the grandparents the real nature of the 
attachment is somewhat disguised and also some- 
what weakened. 

The grandfather is the strong rival of the father, 
the great man to whom the father has to bow sub- 
mission, a meaning preserved in the word itself, 
grandfather, Grossvater, grandpere. The conflict 
with the father is therefore transferred to the grand- 
father, and later the child, as already shown, over- 
comes his antagonist by identifying himself with him. 
He thus becomes the grandfather, or, in other words, 
the father of his father, and then still further to 
carry this unconscious feeling-logic to its ultimate 
ends, his own father. This is the so-called ' ^ reversed 
parentage" phantasy. 

If the grandfather is weak and old then his death 
is often the first death experience of the child. In 

11 Jones, Ernest : "Die Bedeiitung des Grossvaters f iir des Schick- 
sal des Einzelnen." Abraham, Karl: "Einige Bemerkungen liber 
die E,olle der Grosseltern in der Psychologie der Neurosen." 
Ferenczi. S. : "Zum Thema 'Grossvaterkomplex.' " Internat. Zeitsch. 
f. Arztliche Psychoan. Vol. I, No. 3, July, 1914. 



THE FAMILY ROMANCE 169 

this case it leaves the grandmother free for the father 
and the child can then possess, undisputed, the love 
of the mother. Similar mechanisms apply to the 
girl child. 

Similar mechanisms explain the relation to various 
parent surrogates — nurses, servants, aunts and 
uncles, etc. 

Thus we see how the libido is ever striving to 
creative ends. Love, first directed towards the 
parents, becomes the paradigm for all future loves. 
The parent image is the form in which love is first 
cast and as the child develops the ever increasing 
necessity for the completest self-expression, for ful- 
filment, is expressed by ringing the changes upon 
the parent image as it is successively transferred to 
one object after another in the line of development. 
This process is, however, not a simple one. The 
very casting of the love in any form makes for that 
fixity which is an obstacle to the change that develop- 
ment demands, so conflict again becomes the agent 
wherein the play of forces is ever making for eman- 
cipation and self-mastery. 

Such mechanisms show us how a patient in his 
delirium may become his own father and then his 
own child. (See Chapter V.) Such expressions of 
delirium have heretofore been meaningless and are 
now unless we are prepared to explain them upon 
the basis of such mechanisms as are here outlined, 
or similar ones. 

We see in these mechanisms too, how it is that 
parents do literally live again in their children. 



170 CHARACTER FORMATION 

The father sees again in his daughter his wife, and 
back of the wife his mother. The mother, in like 
manner, sees in her son a reincarnation of her hus- 
band and through him again her father. 

And finally, it should not be lost sight of, that the 
fact that the parent or parents died when the child 
was very young, or before it ^vas born does not by 
any means preclude the formation of a parent image. 
As has already been emphasised the parent image 
is a creation largely of phantasy and need have 
little attachment to a real parent. In fact, as has 
been seen, the image is frequently attached to a 
surrogate for the parent with whom the child has 
been brought up. Now, the fact that the father is 
dead only permits phantasy a fuller play. The 
parent image now becomes a true ideal which can be 
clothed in the attribute of any wish whatever with- 
out being hampered by the interference of trouble- 
some facts. This is why great men, as they gradu- 
ally recede in the past of history, progressively 
acquire more and more the attributes of godhood. 
I wonder if Napoleon should rise from his grave to- 
day, if he would not be the most surprised of men 
to read some of the things that have been written 
about him? 

Man always exalts the past and especially his own 
past. 

SOME COKRELATIONS 

One of the confirmations which the Freudian 
psychologists have insisted upon for their hypotheses 
is that the same mechanisms that are at the bottom 



THE FAMILY ROMANCE 171 

of the infantile way of thinking, which dominate the 
psychoses, and also normal life, and which appear 
in dreams, are also to be found over again in folk- 
lore, and the myths and legends which every people 
have. Just as dreams are phantasies which have 
their roots in the infancy of the individual so myths 
are phantasies which have their roots in the child- 
hood of the race. 

The family romance is found carried out in all its 
details in the myths surrounding the origin of na- 
tional heroes like Eomulus, Hercules, Moses, Sieg- 
fried, Lohengrin. These heroes serve to give a 
concrete, projected expression of a whole people 
who reproduce in the hero their own unconscious. 
The hero, as Kank ^^ g^yg << should always be inter- 
preted merely as a collective ego.'' The hero exalts 
his father and so exalts himself, and thus overcomes 
the father by replacing him. This is the mechanism 
at the basis of delusions of grandeur and of per- 
secution and the symbols and mechanisms are the 
same again as those used in the family romance that 
does not end in failure — disease. So does the indi- 
vidual satisfy his demands for power and so does 
the race exalt itself by being descended from a hero. 
** Myths are, therefore, created by adults, by means 
of retrograde childhood phantasies, the hero being 
credited with the myth-maker's personal infantile 
history. " ^^ As Abraham ^^ well puts it : * ^ The race, 

12 "The Mytli of the Birth of the Hero," loc. cit. 

13 Rank, loc. cit. 

14 Abraham, Karl : Dreams and Myths, Nerv. and Ment. Dis. 
Monograph Se., No. 15. 



172 CHARACTER FORMATION 

in prehistoric times, makes its wishes into structures 
of phantasy, which as myths reach over into the his- 
torical ages. In the same way the individual in his 
'prehistoric period' makes structures of phantasy 
out of his wishes which persist as dreams in the * his- 
torical period. ' So is the myth a retained fragment 
from the infantile psychic life^ of the race and the 
dream is the myth of the individual. ' ' ^^ 

The incest motive meets us at every turn in my- 
thology and folk-lore from the revolt of the Titans 
and the overcoming by Cronus of his father Uranus 
whom he supplanted on the throne, to the modern 
drama. Uranus cursed his son and prophesied that 
a day would come when he too would be supplanted 
by his children and so would suffer a just punish- 
ment. In the original version the sexual nature of 
the rivalry between father and son is made plain by 
the fact that Cronus emasculates his father Uranus. 
Phantasies of overcoming the father by castration 
are very common as for example the case cited by 
Jelliffe,^^ of the patient who had sausages, waffles 
and maple syrup every morning for breakfast. 

In fairy tales the wish motive is very potent. 
Wonderful things are always coming to pass with- 
out any effort or if any effort is required the hero is 
endowed with some magical power that assures his 

15 For a discussion of the way these phantasies became attached 
to natural objects and developed the nature myths see Otto Rank 
and Hanns Sachs: The Significance of Psychoanalysis for the Mental 
Sciences, Nerv. and Ment. Dis. Monog. Se. No. 23. 

16 Technique of Psychoanalysis, The Psychoanalytic Review, Vol. 
II, No. 4, October, 1915. 



THE FAMILY ROMANCE 173 

success. Then, too, the wish of the people for power 
is easily seen in the frequency with which peasants, 
even simple-minded persons, attain to high and 
mighty positions and great wealth. In the fairy-tale 
all the impediments are swept aside whether they be 
social position, mental inefficiency, or physical de- 
formity.^^ In addition to these motives we see the 
sexual motive appearing with great frequency, par- 
ticularly in the variants of the family romance. 
Tales setting forth the sex motive in concrete form 
are such tales as *^Oda and the Serpenf (Bech- 
stein's Collection) and **The Frog King" (Grimm 
No. 1). 

The family romance is expressed in many tales and 
in many ways. Examples are ^^The Father Perse- 
cutes His Own Daughter" (Rittershaus Collection), 
in which it is perfectly plainly stated that the prince, 
who had previously killed his parent and his sister 
to secure the kingdom, later desires to possess his 
own daughter, and the story goes on to tell her ad- 
ventures in escaping him. The same motive recurs 
in ^^The Beautiful Sesselja" (Rittershaus collec- 
tion). In ^'The Twelve Brothers" (Grimm No. 27) 
the father has prepared twelve caskets for his twelve 
sons whom he would murder if the thirteenth child 
was a girl. 

All the various changes are rung on the sexual 
rivalry of the different members of the family and 
the simple, naive way in which murder is used to get 

17 See Rieklin, Franz : Wish-fulfilment and Symbolism in Fairy 
Tales, Nerv. and Ment. Dis. Monograph Se., No. 21. 



174 CHARACTER FORMATION 

rid of a hated rival stamps the kind of thinking, 
from which such tales originate, as infantile. 

In literature and drama the main motive meets us 
again and again. ^^ Aside from OEdipus Tyrannus 
already cited, perhaps the most notable piece of 
literature dealing with the (Edipus complex is the 
tragedy of Hamlet.^^ Of more recent examples 
Ibsen furnishes a number of instances.^'' 

For instance, in John Gabriel Borkman — the twin 
sisters Mrs. Borkman and Ella Kentheim contest for 
the love of Erhart, Mrs. Borkman 's son. 

Mes. Borkman 

(Threateningly.) You want to come between us? Between 
mother and son ? You? 

Ella Rentheim 
I want to free liim from your power — your will — your despotism. 

Mrs. Borkman 

(Triumphantly.) You are too late! You had him in your nets 
all those years — until he was fifteen. But now I have won him 
Mgain, you see! 

Ella Rentheim 

Then I will win him back from you ! (Hoarsely, half whisper- 
ing.) We two have fought a life-and-death battle before, Gunhild 
— for a man's soul ! 



18 Rank, Otto : "Das Inzest — ^Motiv in Dichtung und Sage." Leip- 
zig 11. Wien Franz Deuticke, 1912. 

19 Jones, Ernest: The CEdipus Complex as an Explanation of 
Hamlet's Mystery: A Study in Motive. Am. Jour. Psychol. Jan., 
1910. 

20 Cited by Rank: "Das Inzest-Motiv." 



THE FAMILY ROMANCE 175 

Mrs. Borkman 

{After reflecting a moment, firmly.) Erhart himself shall 
choose between us. 

Ella Rentheim 

(Looking doubtfully and hesitatingly at her.) He choose? 
Dare you risk that, Gunhild? 

Mrs. Borkman 

(With a hard laugh.) Dare I? Let my boy choose between his 
mother and you ? Yes, indeed, I dare ! 

Later Ella finds that Borkman discarded her for 
selfish motives, for his own personal business inter- 
ests, and says to him: 

Ella Rentheim 

. . . From the day when your image began to dwindle in my 
mind, I have lived my life as though under an eclipse. During all 
these years it has grown harder and harder for me — and at last 
utterly impossible — to love any living' creature. Human beings, 
animals, plants : I shrink from all — from all but one — 



What one? 
Erhart, of course. 
Erhart? 



Borkman 

3lla Rentheim 

Borkman 



Ella Rentheim 
Erhart — ^your son Borkman. 

Such illustrations of the family romance in its 
multitudinous forms of expression are frequent in 
literature and serve only to add emphasis to what has 



176 CHARACTER FORMATION 

already been said of the meanings of the symbols 
and mechanisms which have as their goal the forcing 
of the individual to the highest expressions of his 
creative energy. 



/ 



CHAPTEE VIII 
THE WILL TO POWER 

"My idea is that every specific body strives to become master of 
all space, and to extend its power (its will to power), and to thrust 
back everything that resists it. But inasmuch as it is continually 
meeting the same endeavours on the part of other bodies, it con- 
cludes by coming to terms with those (by ^combining' with those) 
which are sufficiently related to it — and thus they conspire together 
for power. And the process continues." — ^Nietzsche : "The Will 
to Power." 

"The will to power is the primitive motive force out of which all 
other motives have been derived." — Nietzsche: Ihid, 

THE ALL-POWEEFULNESS OF THOUGHT 

Ferenczi has given us a most suggestive and valu- 
able description ^ of the conflict between the pleasure- 
pain and reality motives during the early period of 
the child's life. 

In the mother 's body the child is in a state of un- 
conditioned omnipotence. Everything is done for it 
— it does not have to take food or even to breathe. 
The mental state of desire can hardly be said to 
exist at all for no need is even permitted to come into 
existence and therefore does not have to be satisfied. 

1 Ferenczi, S. : Entwieklungsstufen des Wirklichkeitssinnes Int. 
Zeitsch. f. Aerztliehe Psychoan. Vol. I, No. 2. Abstracted in the 
Psychoanalytic Review, Vol. I, No. 2 (Feb., 1914). 

177 



178 CHARACTER FORMATION 

The child not only does not have to eat or breathe, it 
is also unnecessary to move, it lies doubled up, sus- 
pended in a comfortably warm fluid to which light 
does not even penetrate ^ and therefore have to be 
reacted to. From this state of comfortable and un- 
conditioned omnipotence the child is thrust, through 
no volition or desire of its own, into a hard, cold, 
uncompromising world of reality. Its first cry on 
being born is its mightiest protest, an expression of 
its desire to be back in the uterus, or according to 
Adler is an expression of its overwhelming sense of 
inferiority on thus suddenly being confronted by 
reality without ever before having had to deal with 
its problems. 

From the moment of birth, His Majesty the Baby 
rules. the household, that is, his world, with an ever 
increasing loss of omnipotence as the demands of 
reality gradually assert themselves with gradual 
though increasing success. 

Ferenczi describes three stages in this conflict be- 
tween the desire to regain the lost omnipotence and 
the world of reality. At first the baby gets what it 
wants by crying for it— this is the period of magic- 
hallucinatory omnipotence. The first sleep of the 
baby is essentially a more or less successful repro- 
duction of its state before birth, removed almost 
absolutely from the disturbing influences of intrud- 
ing stimuli from the outside world. And just as we 

2 This statement is not quite accurate. The mother's abdominal 
walls are, often at least (in thin women), translucent and probably 
the foetus may react to light as it may also, probably, to sound. 



THE WILL TO POWER 179 

have seen that the parent image is the symbol which 
serves to carry the libido on its love path, serves to 
represent the forms into which all future loves shall 
fit, so this situation, freedom from stimuli, serves 
as the paradigm, the prototype, for the regressive 
libido seeking omnipotence when cast back upon it- 
self by the world of reality which it fails to conquer. 
This may be symbolised by a dark quiet room and a 
warm soft bed, by the lap of mother Church, the arms 
of Morpheus (normal or drug induced sleep) or even 
finally by death with its sombre accompaniments, the 
casket representing the matrix — the ambivalent op- 
posite of life and the progressive overcoming of 
reality. 

Later as the child becomes more active and expert 
in the use of its limbs, its instinctive efforts to know 
the real world are expressed by reaching for and at- 
tempting to grasp everything in its environment. It 
may, perchance, drop the toy which has been placed 
in its hands but nevertheless reaches for it although 
it may be far removed from its possibility to grasp. 
The nurse, however, stands ready to span the dis- 
tance and place the toy again in its hands — to satisfy 
its wish. This is the period of omnipotence with the 
help of magic gestures. 

This period holds the stage for a while but it too 
becomes progressively insufficient to meet the de- 
mands of reality for it happens only too often that 
what the child reaches for it does not find instantly 
in its hand. Perhaps the nurse does not happen to 
be by or is indifferent or perhaps the child has 



180 CHARACTER FORMATION 

reached for the moon which even a solicitous nurse 
cannot supply. 

With the passing of the period of magic gestures 
a new set of symbols comes to the fore — the language 
symbols which are new vehicles for expressing wishes 
and representing desired objects and so the lost 
omnipotence is sought anew by magic words — the 
period of magic thinking and magic words. 

These various periods are only different ways of 
trying to get what is wanted by the phantasy route 
instead of by efficient contact with reality. Thejr are 
ways of having dreams come true, not by wresting 
success from nature, but by thinking them true — the 
method that substitutes for action the all-powerful- 
ness of thought (AUmacht der Gedanken). 

The progressive failure of these different devices 
is contemporaneous with and due to the development 
of the ego-consciousness of the child under the stimu- 
lus of reality. Gestures, words, constantly fail by 
themselves to bring desired results to pass and so 
reality gains more and more recognition. 

This distinction between *^self" and *^not self 
has to be slowly and painstakingly worked out as the 
result of innumerable experiments. If we were to 
watch a three months old baby playing on the floor 
we would notice that it picked up the objects within 
reach and pretty generally thrust them immediately 
into its mouth. This is done at first indifferently 
with such objects as a rubber ball on the one hand 
or with the baby's foot on the other. Depending 
upon whether the object is or is not a part of the 



J^ 



THE WILL TO POWER 181 

baby's body we have here two very diiTerent types of 
experience. The baby gets two very different results 
depending upon whether it is the rubber ball or the 
foot that it sticks in its mouth. When he sticks the 
ball in his mouth he gets a certain sensation in his 
mouth. When he sticks his foot in his mouth he also 
gets a certain sensation in his mouth, but he gets 
something more — he gets an added sensation in his 
foot. Without elaborating this illustration further 
it will be seen that at first we are dealing in the child 
with a diffuse activity which does not appreciate any 
distinction between the foot which he sees lying on 
the floor before him and the rubber ball, and that by 
such experiences as this he begins the process of dif- 
ferentiating himself from his environment — of grad- 
ually building up within his psyche a series of mental 
images that stand for his own body in distinction 
from the rest of the world. 

It is this principle that is at the basis of magic and 
animism. In Melanesia ^ if a man's friends get pos- 
session of the arrow with which he was wounded 
they believe that by keeping it in a damp place or 
wrapped in cool leaves the inflammation will be 
trifling or soon disappear from the wound. On the 
contrary the enemy operates along opposite lines. 
He and his friends drink hot juices and chew irri- 
tating leaves for the purpose of inflaming the wound, 
and keep the bow near the fire to make the wound 
hot. If they have been able to get possession of 

3 Frazer, J. G., "The Golden Bough," (3rd ed.) Pt. I. "The Magic 
Art and the Evolution of Kings." Vol. I, Chap. III. 



182 CHARACTER FORMATION 

the arrow that inflicted the wound they put that, for 
the same reason, into the fire. 

As for names, among savages there is no real dis- 
tinction between the thing or the person and the 
name.* The savage regards his name as a part of 
himself. ^^An Australian black is always very 
unwilling to tell his real name, and there is no doubt 
that this reluctance is due to the fact that through 
his name he may be injured by sorcerers. ' ' ^ During 
an epidemic of smallpox in Mombasa, British East 
Africa, the natives refrained from mentioning the 
name of the disease.^ These are examples that are 
quite on a par with the developmental stages of the 
infant described by Ferenczi. In fact he correlates ^ 
the periods of magic gestures and of magic thoughts 
with the neuroses which employ various physical 
disabilities (conversions) or ceremonials (compulsive 
neurosis) in the service of the repression of certain 
censored complexes. The anthropological data add 
further evidence. For example: In the island of 
Timor ^ the people after making long journeys fan 
themselves with leafy branches and then throw the 
branches away. Their fatigue is supposed to be 
transferred to the branches and then by throwing 

4Frazer, J. G.: "The Golden Bough," (3rd ed.) Part I. Taboo 
and the Perils of the Soul. Chap. VI. Tabooed words, 

5 Smyth, R. B.: "Aborigines of Victoria," I. 469 note cited by 
Frazer, loc. cit. 

6 Frazer, loc. cit. 

7 Ferenczi, loc. cit. 

8 Frazer, J. G.: "The Golden Bough," (3rd ed.) Part I. "The 
Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings," Vol. I, Chap. III. 



THE WILL TO POWER 183 

these away they get rid of their fatigue. Other peo- 
ples, for example in the Babar Archipelago use 
stones for the same purpose. This custom, with 
many variations, is widely spread and when used to 
rid the individual of an evil becomes a rite of puri- 
fication, which among certain Mohammedans in 
Africa is seen in its opposite form, as the throwing 
of marked stones at a holy man, which are after- 
ward recovered and embraced and so transfer some 
of his goodness to the devotee. Such practices are 
akin to the tics and compulsions of neurotics which 
are, from this point of view, ceremonials of purifica- 
tion. A hand-washing compulsion may thus be a 
means of symbolic purification for a moral sin by 
which an effort is made to separate the sin from the 
body and cast it away quite as concretely as is the 
fatigue with the stone or the leafy branches. 

All the things that we wish for come to pass in 
that fairy land where ^* candles come alight," a land 
preserved in the fairy tales of all peoples. All our 
limitations are shed in this beautiful land and again 
the all-powerfulness of thought reasserts itself and 
our wishes come true. And so the praiser of past 
times — laudator temporis acti — is seeking to avoid 
the necessity of meeting the present with efficient 
action by dwelling on the glories of the past, he is 
seeking to return to that period in which his thoughts 
were all-powerful, he is striving to recover his lost 
omnipotence. 

In the same way we find this land of pleasant 
dreams represented in dreams by a symbolism that 



184: CHARACTER FORMATION 

can be seen to reproduce the condition in the uterus, 
and the entering upon a new and radical period ot 
life being symbolised by birth — re-birth. In the 
dream of the patient who dreamt that he fell into a 
great body of water and then after having swum 
about for a time saw a small opening and then swum 
into this and found himself in a large cave, the sym- 
bolic representation of the uterus and the birth pas- 
sage is fairly clear. In the ceremonials of many 
peoples, however, there is no longer any room for 
doubt as to the true meaning. In Greece when a man 
who was supposedly dead and for whom funeral 
rites had been performed, returned, he was still 
treated as dead until he had been born again, which, 
consisted of being passed through a woman's lap, 
washed, dressed in swaddling clothes and put to a 
nurse. In India the ceremonial for the same pur- 
pose was more elaborate. The first night after his 
return was spent in a tub filled with fat and water. 
He sat in the tub without speaking and with doubled- 
up fists while over him were performed the sacra- 
ments that were celebrated over a pregnant woman. 
Next morning he got out of the tub, went through 
all the sacraments he had formerly partaken of from 
his youth up and in particular married a wife or 
espoused his old one over again. In Japan when a 
marriage is unfruitful the old women of the neigh- 
bourhood come to the house and go through the cere- 
mony of delivering the wife of a child represented 
by a doll. Among the Akikuyu of British East 
Africa every member of the tribe must go through 



THE WILL TO POWER 185 

the ceremony of being reborn. In the afternoon a 
goat or sheep is killed for the stomach and intestines. 
A circular piece of the goat or the sheepskin is 
passed over one shoulder and under the other arm 
of the child and the animal's stomach over the other 
shoulder and under the other arm. The mother, 
or the woman acting in that capacity and who 
therefore is regarded as the mother thenceforth, sits 
on a hide with the child between her knees. The 
animal's gut is passed about her and brought in 
front of the child. She groans as if in labour, a 
woman severs the gut as if it were the navel string, 
and the child imitates the cry of a new-born infant. 
Among the natives of German New Guinea ^ the rite 
of circumcision symbolises a re-birth. The young 
men are taken to a long hut built to resemble a huge 
monster with great eyes and emitting terrifying 
growls from time to time as the lads approach. In 
this hut they are circumcised and live afterward 
for some three or four months. After this period 
of seclusion is over they come forth and are then 
treated as full-grown men. 

When we correlate with facts of this sort the well- 
known curiosity of children to know where babies 
come from, their inventions of all sorts of explana- 
tions which the grown-ups try to sidetrack by the 
stork story, and then realise that one of the most 
profound and wide spread bases upon which early 
society was organised — totemism — had its root, in all 

9 Frazer, J. G. : "The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of 
the Dead," Vol. I, Lect. XI. 



186 CHARACTER FORMATION 

probability, in a like attempt to explain the phenom- 
ena of pregnancy and the origin of the child, and 
when we realise further that in the Christian religion 
we find a highly sublimated symbolic re-birth play- 
ing an important part we can begin to see that after 
all it is not so very strange or grotesque that our 
patients should dream in this very concrete way of 
being born again. 

The all-powerfulness of thought is the principle 
at the basis of the magic rites of primitive man as 
it is of the conduct of the baby and is dependent upon 
that developmental stage through which the mind 
passes and in which no adequate separation has yet 
been made between the *^I" and the **not I,'' — the 
stage of *4ntrojection" of Ferenczi in w^hich the 
environment enters into and forms a part of the Ego. 

In the illustration of the Melanesians who treat the 
arrow instead of the man wounded by it, we see the 
same principle involved as in the illustration of the 
baby. The savage believes that there is a sympa- 
thetic relation between the wound and the instru- 
ment which inflicted it that we know does not exist. 
He has not been able adequately and effectively to 
separate himself from his environment. 

We see that very same phenomenon in the psy- 
choses. No symptom is more common in dementia 
prsecox than that of being influenced by the environ- 
ment — the delusion of influence. The environment 
from being something upon which to expend energy, 
something outside of the ego, something that has to 
be dealt with, moulded and shaped, reacted to effi- 



THE WILL TO POWER 187 

ciently, suddenly becomes filled with mysterious 
meanings. A strange feeling of influence comes 
from all directions, sources that frequently cannot 
be clearly defined and sources when they are defined 
that remind us of the world of primitive man. It 
becomes peopled with myriad forms, voices speak 
from unseen beings, from animals, and even from 
trees. There are strange visions, all sorts of magical 
things happen, electricity, wireless telegraphy, 
thought reading and bad influences of all sorts 
abound. The psychosis has plunged the patient to 
a lower cultural level and he reacts in a way to 
remind us of the savage rather than of the civilised 
man. His whole environment has assumed an inti- 
mate personal relationship, its elements animate and 
inanimate alike have been personified, he is in a 
mental stage corresponding to the animistic stage of 
development of primitive man. There is no longer 
a clear differentiation between the ego and the envi- 
ronment. 

In the neuroses and the psychoneuroses we are all 
familiar with that quality of the patients that makes 
us recognise them as infantile. The patient with a 
well marked complex formation finally gets so that 
almost everything in life is assimilated in some way 
to the complex. Hardly anything can happen with- 
out touching a painful point that arouses the complex 
to activity and so the environment begins, as it were, 
to intrude more and more into the patient's person- 
ality as the malady grows worse. The patient be- 
comes progressively less able to separate his person- 



188 CHARACTER FORMATION 

ality from the world at large. It is the same sort 
of thing we see in a certain type of housekeeper who 
never can rest until everything is just exactly so and 
whose whole scheme of life is destroyed if a picture 
on the wall does not hang straight. 

We also see the infantile characteristics in the con- 
stant reiteration of their troubles; the emphasis 
which they place upon certain, often inconsequential 
occurrences ; the regrets and the prolonged accounts 
of what might have been *4f" only such and such 
things had not happened. It is as though by very 
emphasis things could be changed, as if the mill 
could really be turned with the water that was past. 
This reversion to the all-powerfulness of thought, 
this living in the past are important factors in crip- 
pling the individual so as to prevent anything like 
an adequate dealing with reality. They will be seen, 
too, to represent earlier phases both ontogenetic and 
phylogenetic. The reaction of the neurotic can only 
receive a comprehensive understanding through an 
understanding both of the mind of the child and the 
mind of primitive man. 

Mankind passes through these stages of develop- 
ment — the periods of magic and of all powerful 
thoughts. The child exhibits these stages and so 
does primitive man — ^the child of the race. But real- 
ity is inexorable. In Anhalt,^^ after planting his 
crops, the sower leaps high in the air and throws 

10 Frazer, J. G. : "Tlie Golden Bough," ( 3rd ed. ) Part I. "The 
Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings," Vol. I, Chap. III. 



THE WILL TO POWER 189 

the seed bag high up also, for as high as he throws the 
seed bag so high he hopes the flax to grow. The 
men of the emur totem of the Armita tribe, in order 
to create emurs, which are an important article of 
their food, let their blood flow upon the ground and 
then when the ground is dry and caked they paint 
upon it the sacred design of the emur, especially the 
parts they like to eat. Primitive man feels greatly 
the need for rain, so he goes about getting it by the 
principles of homeopathic,^^ or imitative magic, 
simulating it by sprinkling water on the ground and 
otherwise imitating a storm. 

These are fairly illustrative examples of the magic 
rites of primitive man. But it must often have hap- 
pened that no matter how high he jumped or threw 
the seed bag that the crops were poor or failed, no 
matter how freely he gave his blood for the creation 
of animals for food they were not numerous enough 
to supply his needs, no matter how diligently he 
practised his rain charms the sky stayed clear and 
the earth hot and parched. 

It is the same way with the child. It must hap- 
pen, sooner or later, that he reaches out his hand 
and it comes back empty; he cries, for the moon 
perhaps, and he must go without. 

In both instances failure repeatedly occurs, and 
finally the formula which is not the right formula 
must be put aside and primitive man and the child 

iiFrazer, J. G.: "The Golden Bough," (3rd ed.) Part I. "The 
Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings," Vol. I, Chap. V. 



190 CHARACTER FORMATION 

alike are forced to acknowledge their metliods as 
failures.^2 Eepeated disappointments operate as 
constant spurs to cause a further investigation of 
and a more intimate contact with reality to the end 
of an ever more and more efficient adaptation. The 
tools available to these undeveloped minds are simple 
and ineffective and so the process is slow and falter- 
ing and results in a tremendous sacrifice of energy. 
Yet this is the way the race has grown and it is upon 
such a foundation of rude beginnings that our pres- 
ent civilisation rests : it is from such humble origins 
that the minds of to-day have sprung, and it is only 
by understanding the various steps in the path of this 
progress that we can come to an understanding of 
mental phenomena as we find them now. 

This tendency to react as though thought was all- 
powerful is denominated the Gottmensch or the 
Jeliovah complex and is manifested in either of two 
ambivalent tendencies — either the tendency to act 
as if the individual were, as a matter of fact, omnip- 
otent or omniscient or both or, the exact opposite, 
to effect an humbleness which really implies such 
superiority. 

If the creative energy, the libido, is always striving 
for greater things, more significant and larger con- 
quests, more power, then the will to power may be 
considered as the motive underlying all conduct and 
therefore by no means abnormal, because a universal 

12 Royce, Josiah : "Primitive Ways of Thinking with Special 
Reference to Negation and Classification." The Open Court, Oct., 
1913. 



THE WILL TO POWER 191 

attribute. It is, here, as elsewhere, not the nature 
of the driving force that calls for the qualification 
as abnormal but the way in which that force is used 
and made to subserve possible, practical, pragmatic 
ends. The degree to which it fails of this form of 
utilisation is the degree of its abnormality. 

The primitive signs of the Gottmensch complex 
are the outward and evident signs of a great and 
often overbearing egotism that brooks no contradic- 
tion. A self-sufficiency and self-assertiveness which, 
in really efficient individuals makes for great accom- 
plishments but is only too often the expression of an 
over-compensation for grave defects of character. 
Such persons express opinions about everything 
with a concrete finality, they obtrude themselves 
upon all occasions, and believe themselves capable 
of occupying any position, no matter how exalted. 
They freely criticise and as freely tell what they 
would have done under such and such conditions. 
Their general carriage and demeanour are prone 
to be self-assertive to the point of being bombastic 
and are then, very frequently, upon an evident back- 
ground of inefficiency and inherent weakness. 

We are familiar with the delusions of grandeur 
in the psychoses. The one disease in which they 
assume a degree of outlandishness and absurdity 
greater than in any other is paresis where corre- 
spondingly the real defect, as the result of a destruc- 
tive disease of the brain, is greatest. This, it seems 
to me, stamps the delusions of grandeur in paresis 
as, largely at least, phenomena of over-compensation 



192 CHAEACTER FOEMATION 

for the organic defect produced by the disease. Here 
delusions tend in two main directions — money power 
and sexual power. These patients have so much 
money that they no longer can express the amount in 
the terms available but have to invent new words 
for the purpose, while their sexual power is expressed 
by their hundreds of wives and concubines and thou- 
sands of children. 

The ambivalent expression of the Gottmensch 
complex is expressed by the most extreme humble- 
ness, diffidence and modesty. Jones cites the case ^^ 
of a man who said he lived in the last house in the 
city. The delusions of persecution of the paranoiac 
imply his great importance — because of the impor- 
tant persons, societies, kings, the great money 
powers, the Catholic Church, etc., who are engaged 
in trying to bring about his ruim The idea of 
grandeur back of it all is frequently seen in the satis- 
faction displayed in telling of these persecutions 
and also in demonstrating how, in spite of all their 
arts and power, he has been able always to circum- 
vent their designs. 

In paresis too, we see the opposite picture of the 
classical delusions of grandeur but quite as extrava- 
gant in their way. For example, the paretic believes 
he has no stomach and has similar absurd and wholly 
impossible ideas which are well contrasted with the 

13 Jones, Ernest: Der Gottmensch-Komplex. Internat. Zeitschr. 
f. Arztliclie Psychoan. Vol. I, No. 4. Abstracted in the Psycho- 
analytic Review, Vol. I, No. 4'. 



THE WILL TO POWER 193 

ideas of grandeur by the term micromanic applied 
to them by Kraepelin.^^ 

Innumerable minor ways of manifesting this com- 
plex are seen. In the main they consist of all sorts 
of devices that serve to set off the individual from 
his fellows ; to make him different, not like the rest ; 
to isolate him in a world all his own in which he is 
supreme. Such devices are peculiar forms of speech 
and ways of speaking; non-understandable and 
involved methods of expression in speech or writing; 
illegible handwriting; the pursuit of knowledge and 
culture along recondite, obscure, impracticable and 
little known paths; the affectation of odd manner- 
isms; ways of dressing that attract notice; and a 
thousand and one peculiarities as numerous as the 
individuals using them. Glueck reports ^^ a para- 
noid patient in this hospital whose detailed care to 
keep himself from contact, in any way, direct or in- 
direct, reminds us very strongly of the ideas of 
sacredness that attach to royal personages and of 
the taboos that grow up about them.^^ 

The psychological basis of the Gottmensch com- 
plex, or at least its fundamental and principal basis, 
is an identification with the father, God being in this 

14 Kraepelin, E. : General Paresis, Nerv. and Ment. Dis. Mono- 
graph Series ^No. 14. 

15 Glueck, B.: The God Man or Jehovah Complex. N. Y. Med. 
Jour., Sept. 4, 1915. 

16 Cf. Frazer, J. G.: "The Golden Bough," (3rd ed.) Part II, Ta- 
boo and the Perils of the Soul. See especially Chap, I, The Burden of 
Royalty, and that portion of Chap. IV dealing with the taboos of 
Chiefs and Kings. 



194 CHARACTER FORMATION 

sense only an enlarged, idealised, and projected 
father image. The autoerotic and exhibitionistic 
determiners which Jones emphasises,^^ will be dwelt 
on in the next chapter in the discussion of partial 
libido trends. 

17 Loc. cit. 



CHAPTER IX 
THE WILL TO POWER (Cont.) 

What you are stands over you the while, and thunders so 
that I cannot hear what you say to the contrary, — Emerson, 
— Social Aims. 

PAETIAL LIBIDO STRIVINGS 

The body is composed of cells, the cells are grouped 
into organs, and the organs correlated and inte- 
grated to serve the ends of the individual. Similarly 
society is made up of individuals which are grouped 
and regrouped into larger and larger subdivisions 
thereof in a quite analogous way. We are familiar 
with the clashing interests of different groups of 
individuals, societies, classes, and in legislative 
bodies, wards, counties or states. Those who have 
followed legislative processes know that it is rare 
indeed when a given bill meets with anything like uni- 
versal favour. Generally it is opposed from many 
sides and has to yield first here and then there by 
accepting amendments which express those oppo- 
sitions. Finally the bill as passed may have little 
resemblance to its original form so changed is it as 
a result of the war which has been waged about it. 
The result which has been reached is the final result 
of a series of compromises with the various opposing 

195 



196 CHAKACTER FORMATION 

forces. Just so it is with the body or the psyche 
for that matter. Each organ, in fact each cell would 
absorb the entire individual so that he would be all 
liver or all stomach, or all anything else as the case 
might be if the organ in question succeeded in so 
dominating the situation that its will to power was no 
longer hampered, held in check, by the interests, the 
strivings, the will to power of other organs. This 
hierarchy of organs and functions and, heretofore 
described, of reacting levels, finally leads to the 
hegemony of the psyche in which, so to speak, the 
final compromises are reached and which, as a result, 
is able to pick up and sort out the tendencies of all 
the parts, and so group them as to express the striv- 
ings, no longer of the parts as such, but of the whole 
individual. 

It will be useful to keep this viewpoint of struggle 
between the parts of the organism in mind. For the 
present the important thing to note is that these 
tendencies and counter-tendencies can be separated 
into two great groups, namely, those which make for 
the preservation of the individual and those which 
make for the maintenance and perpetuation of the 
race — the self -preservative and the race-preservative 
tendencies respectively. Or to put it in terms of 
libido, the libido has two main tendencies, the self- 
preservative or nutritional libido and the race-pre- 
servative or sexual libido. It will be useful, there- 
fore, to consider the various strivings of the indi- 
vidual from the standpoint of which one of these 
groups they fall into. 



PARTIAL LIBIDO STRIVINGS 197 

Let us take first the sexual libido. As has already 
been indicated the child has first to be tremendously 
interested in its own body. This is a necessary pre- 
condition for the growth of the ego- consciousness, 
that is for effecting that progress in development 
which has for its object the separating of the **I'' 
from the ^'not I.'' This is the period of autoeroti- 
cism for the interest in so far as it is a love interest, a 
love of one 's self that is erotic, i.e., of sexual nature. 
Later on, as this separation of the self from the 
environment is effected the love of the child begins 
to go out to those about it and at first to that person 
or those persons who are most like itself.^ In other 
words the erotic interest is homosexual and narcis- 
sistic.^ To the extent that the love object is the 
parent, brother or sister of the opposite sex the love 
is incestuous. So that in the course of development 
from autoeroticism through narcissism, homosex- 
uality and incest to an object love, that is at once 

iCf. Freud, S.: Three Contributions to the Theory of Sex, 
Nerv. and Ment. Dis. Monog. Se. No. 7. 

2 Narcissus was a beautiful youth who fell in love with his own 
image reflected from a pool to which he had bent to slake his 
thirst. Each time he reached out his arms to grasp the beautiful 
apparition it vanished. This was repeated over and over again, 
until finally. Narcissus pined away and died. Olympus compas- 
sionately changed the corpse into the flower bearing his name which 
has ever since flourished beside quiet pools. 

"A lonely flower he spied, 
A meek and forlorn flower, with naught of pride. 
Drooping its beauty o'er the watery clearness. 
To woo its o\^Ti sad image into nearness: 
Deaf to light Zephyrus it would not move; 
But still would seem to droop, to pine, to love." — ^Keats. 



198 CHARACTER FORMATION 

heterosexual and not incestuous, certain barriers 
have had to be erected, the autoerotic barrier and the 
incest barrier— the latter of which in some of its 
nuances has been discussed in the discussion of the 
family romance (Chapter VII). 

Certain additional and partial tendencies are asso- 
ciated with this general trend, the more important of 
which are exhibitionism and its ambivalent opposite, 
curiosity. Exhibitionism has its roots in the desire 
of the child to show off its body naked and without 
shame and therefore gets its pleasure motive from 
the sense of freedom — ^being without shame which 
of course represents the social repressions. Hence 
dreams of nakedness and Paradise represented as a 
place where clothes are unnecessary. The pompous- 
ness and self-assertiveness of the Gottmensch com- 
plex have this root. 

Curiosity is the opposite; instead of projecting 
one's own personality into the world, foisting it upon 
people, one tries to absorb the world in the form of 
knowledge, to know all things, to become omniscient. 

Curiosity in young children manifests itself as 
sexual curiosity and in the form of touching corre- 
lates itself with another of the fore-pleasures, look- 
ing, of the sexual act.^ This tendency to touch things 
is seemingly at the root of those propensities to 
steal, the so-called kleptomania, in which the tend- 
encies appear so mysterious because the things taken 
have no apparent usefulness for the individual. 
Wealthy women, for example, who steal from depart- 

3 Cf. Freud: "Three Contributions." 



PARTIAL LIBIDO STRIVINGS 199 

ment stores things that they could not possibly have 
use for, or if they did, which they could easily afford 
to buy. 

In connection with these partial tendencies, too, 
the various erogenous zones should be borne in mind. 
In the child the sexual zone has only the same eroge- 
nous quality as that shared in by other zones of the 
body, particularly the mouth and anus. This is due 
to the fact that during infancy pleasure has been 
associated with all of these zones indifferently. The 
pleasures of urination, defecation, and sucking. 
Pleasure being the moving force back of all conduct 
it is sought indifferently at first in all of these direc- 
tions and it is not until a later developmental period 
that the primacy of the sexual zone is finally estab- 
lished. The failure to establish the primacy of the 
sex zone coupled with a delay in development at the 
homosexual, narcissistic level produces, as one of its 
results, the various forms of sexual perversions 
which will not be discussed more in detail in this 
work. Suffice it to say that the infant has been desig- 
nated as, sexually, polymorphous perverse, that is, 
from the standpoint of the early stage of develop- 
ment, when the instincts are a more or less homo- 
geneous mass, or have not yet worked out their means 
and avenues of expression in conformity with adult 
and efficient standards, the individual contains within 
himself, not only the possibility of a normal develop- 
ment but also the possibilities of any one of the 
various deviations from the normal. 

One of these deviations, anal eroticism, is exceed- 



200 CHARACTER FORMATION 

ingly interesting and shows the type of mechanism 
very well, for it has been fairly well worked out. 
The most notable characteristics of the person who 
has retained a certain amount of anal eroticism are 
orderliness, obstinacy, and economy.* With this 
group the affect of hate may be exceptionally in 
evidence.^ 

We can understand these characteristics if we will 
recall the infantile situation. During this period the 
establishment of the excretory functions must excite 
much interest and wonder. It would seem to me 
difficult to overestimate the -effects that the initiation 
of these functions must have upon the child. They 
begin before the child has differentiated himself 
from the rest of the world, they take place without 
his volition, and they are accompanied by massive 
feelings of pleasure. It is not difficult to see in such 
experiences the roots of urinary and fecal phan- 
tasies. From the very first the bowel dejecta are 
treated as dirty. The child learns, as soon as it can 
learn anything, that fecal matter is considered dirty 
and the bowel movements in the diaper are fre- 
quently denominated a **mess." In addition to this 
attitude the child has held up to it, upon occasions 
when it has soiled itself, the ideal of cleanliness, 
neatness, the absence of a *' mess," in short the ideals 
of neatness and orderliness. It therefore happens, 

4 Brill, A. A.: "Psychanalysis," Chap. XI. Anal Eroticism and 
Character, W. B. Saunders Co., Philadelphia, 1912. 

5 Jones, Ernest : Hass und Analerotik in der Zwangsneurose. 
Int. Zeitsch. f. Xrztliche Psychoan., Vol. I, No. 5. Abstracted in 
the Psychoanalytic Review, Vol. II, No. 1. 



PARTIAL LIBIDO STRIVINGS 201 

in later life, that the reactions formed against anal 
eroticism are neatness and orderliness. 

Inasmuch as the movements of the bowels are 
pleasurable in a massive way and are among the 
first pleasures of the infant it naturally resents 
efforts that are made to rob it of this pleasure. As 
the time and place of bowel movements are among 
the first to fall under the ban of social repression this 
pleasure is, from the first, interfered with by nurse 
or mother. The child in its effort to retain the pleas- 
ure thus interfered with develops the character of 
obstinacy, that is, fights for its own way, strives to 
retain this particular form of satisfaction in the face 
of forces that tend to rob it of the pleasure. 

The economical characteristic is a little more diffi- 
cult to explain. One of the ways of securing and 
embracing the pleasure associated with the move- 
ments of the bowels is by retaining the feces and so 
increasing the massiveness of the pleasurable results. 
The anal erotic is, therefore, characteristically con- 
stipated. This tendency to retain and accumulate 
is extended and, if well sublimated shows itself in 
economy, tendencies to collect, for example to make 
art collections, collections of books, and in many 
other more or less useful ways. When not so well 
sublimated the tendency is to penuriousness, avari- 
ciousness, miserliness, and the collection of useless 
things. 

The relation of money to anal erotic is still further 
determined. It is probably partly determined by the 
association of the least valuable with the most valu- 



202 CHARACTER FORMATION 

able although we shall see among savages how fecal 
matter comes to be regarded as of great value. 
They are probably further associated by the common 
colour — yellow. The existence of many common ex- 
pressions such as *^ filthy lucre" shows how general 
this association really is. 

I have said that hate was characteristic of the anal 
erotic. If the description of obstinacy is borne in 
mind it will be seen how the child, constantly inter- 
fered with in the enjoyment of its pleasure, not only 
becomes obstinate but becomes resentful against the 
person who is thus always interfering. Herein prob- 
ably is the origin of the hate reaction and inasmuch 
as the person against whom it is projected is usually 
the mother, that is, the person most loved, it is seen 
that the hate reaction is first manifested towards the 
most loved person. This being the original form of 
experience it is natural that thereafter hate should 
easily arise in connection with all later objects of 
love. The close connection between love and hate 
has always been recognised. Here is probably also 
an important root of sadism.^ In those individuals 
who have failed completely either to sublimate or to 
form effective reactions against these instinctive 
tendencies but who live on in their infancy, so to 
speak, we find a noticeable tendency to carelessness 
in dress amounting to slovenliness, uncleanliness, 
general disorderliness, a tendency to go frequently 
to stool and great irritability when interfered with. 

6 The gratification of the sexual feeling by seeing or inflicting 
pain. 



PARTIAL LIBIDO STRIVINGS 203 

This is a common picture in the asylums and the 
explanation here given has been worked out by Dr. 
E. J. Kempf J 

V A rather similar situation prevails with regard to 
the urethral (urinary) erotic. I recall a dream of 
a friend of mine ; he dreamt of Karl Marx' definition 
of wealth which amounted to saying that wealth was 
the surplus product of trade. The idea of surplus 
product went right back, upon analysis, to interest 
in urinary excretion. Urine of course is also a sur- 
plus product, also yellow like gold. 

Masturbation produces another one of these 
** pleasures of expulsion" all of which are autoerotic 
efforts at gaining omnipotence, at being self-sufficient 
in the sense of not having to go beyond one's own 
body for satisfactions. People who still react in 
these infantile ways are very impatient of inter- 
ference, irritable, restless, '* nervous"; having been 
accustomed to find the sources of satisfaction within 
themselves they are unable to brook the delays im- 
posed by the world of reality. 

It is significant to note in all these types of reac- 
tion that the distinction made at the beginning of 
this chapter, of nutritive and sexual libido, is not at 
all clear. Urination and defecation belong on the 
nutritive side of the fence but we find these functions 
utilised as sources of erotic pleasure. This admix- 
ture is still further in evidence in the ceremonials 
of primitive man.^ Here we find feces, for example, 

7 Personal commuiiication. 

sjelliffe, S. E. and Zenia X : Compulsion Neurosis and 



204 CHARACTER FORMATION 

greatly valued. Such values can only be understood 
by keeping constantly in mind that they are uncon- 
scious values, that the unconscious is laid down in 
infancy before the development of critique and that 
the values have reference to feeling tones and not to 
intellectually appreciated qualities. To the infant, 
therefore, anything that comes from the body may 
easily have the same value be it urine, feces, sweat 
or blood. 

This way of thinking is well illustrated in the cus- 
toms of primitive men. It is well known that the 
savage believes that any part of his body or even 
his clothes partakes of himself, his life, so that if a 
sorcerer gets a bit of his nail-paring, a lock of his 
hair, or even a shred of his blanket he can by magic 
make the owner ill. So the Fijians extend this to 
bits of food left over and even to their excretions 
which are deposited in secret for fear that a sor- 
cerer might, through them, gain control over them.^ 

In Tud or Warrior Island, Torres Straits, men 
drink the sweat of renowned warriors and eat the 
scrapings from their finger-nails which had become 
coated and sodden with human blood. This was 
done ^^to make strong and like stone; no afraid." ^^ 

Primitive Culture. The Psychoanalytic Review, Vol. I, No. 4. 

Brink, Louise: Frazer's "Golden Bough." The Psychoanalytic 
Review, Vol. Ill, No. 1. 

9 Thomson, Basil: "The Fijians," cited by Frazer, J. G.: "The 
Belief in Immortality," Vol. I. Macmillan & Co., 1913. 

loHadden, A. C: The Ethnography of the Western Tribes of 
Torres Straits, cited by Frazer, J. G.: "The Golden Bough" (3rd 
Ed.), Part V. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, Vol. II. 



PARTIAL LIBIDO STRIVINGS 205 

The Papuans believed that the soul resided in the 
blood.^^ The custom of savages wounding them- 
selves and mixing their blood and so becoming blood 
relatives ^- is an elaboration of their way of thinking 
of blood. 

The blood, the urine, the feces, the perspiration, 
anything in fact that had touched the body, particu- 
larly anything that came from it was possessed of 
its spiritual essence, was part of it. Their physical 
separation from the individual did not, however, 
sever their connection really. They still stood in 
sympathetic relation with the individual, and because 
being of him he could be influenced through them. 

The associational way of thinking which leads to 
like results is well illustrated in the case of Zenia 

X ^^ She was afraid that she would offend God 

if, for example, her tears came between her and God 
when at prayer. She thought this way about her 
tears because her tears might have been due to im- 
pure, unclean thoughts. 

We see this way of thinking exemplified in the so- 
called birth and impregnation phantasies which are 
of such frequent occurrence in dreams and in the 
symbolism not only of the neuroses and the psychoses 
but of everyday life. 

It seems improbable, on the face of it, when a 

11 Goudswaard, A. : De Papoewa's van de Geelvinksbaai, cited by 
Prazer: "Belief in Immortality." 

12 Tyler, E. B.: Anthropology, Int. Sci. Se. D. Appleton & Co., 
New York, 1893. 

13 Jellife and Zenia X , loc. cit. 



206 CHAEACTER FORMATION 

movement of the bowels has been put down as a birth 
phantasy and eating was said to symbolise sexual 
intercourse. Let us examine the evidence. 

Early in the life of the child, as in that of man, 
the origin of life, as represented by the advent of a 
new human being, is regarded with curiosity and 
wonder. We can easily understand this, for the 
more we learn about it the greater does the wonder 
become. The important point I wish to emphasize, 
however, is that in neither instance, that of the child 
or of primitive man, is there any relation known be- 
tween sexual intercourse, pregnancy, and childbirth. 
Why this is so with the child we know, the reasons 
for this ignorance among primitive men are many. 
I will only mention one, namely, the long time that 
elapses between impregnation and the first signs of 
foetal life effectually prevents the relation of cause 
and effect from being established. 

Now both children and savages know, in a vague 
way, that the child for a time resides in the body of 
the mother. How it gets there ? where it comes from 
anyway! is the subject of much theorising. 

The natives of Central Australia ^* think that in 
a far distant past they call * ^ Alcheringa " their an- 
cestors, when they died, went into the ground at 
certain spots which are known by some natural 
feature such as a stone or tree. At such spots their 
ancestral spirits are ever waiting a favourable oppor- 

i^Frazer, J. G.: "Totemism and Exogamy. A Treatise on Cer- 
tain Early Forms of Superstition and Society." 4 vols., Macmillan 
and Co., London, 1910, Vol. I, p. 93. 



PARTIAL LIBIDO STRIVINGS 207 

tunity for reincarnation, and if a young girl or 
woman passes they pounce upon her, enter her, and 
secure their chance of being born again into the 
world. In the Arunta and Kaitish ^^ tribes the 
totem of the child is determined by the place where 
the mother first *^felt life,'* as the child is supposed 
to be the re-incarnation of a spirit belonging to the 
totem occupying this locality. In the Central Aus- 
tralian tribes ^^ this theory, that the child is a re- 
born ancestor, a re-incarnation of the dead, is uni- 
versally held. The Baganda believe ^^ that excep- 
tionally a woman may be impregnated without com- 
merce with the other sex, and so when a woman finds 
herself in this state and the usual explanation is not 
evident, she may claim that the pregnancy is due to 
the flower of a banana falling on her back or 
shoulders while she was at work, and this explana- 
tion is accepted. In the island of Mota in the Bank's 
Group,^^ if a woman happens to find, while seated in 
the bush, an animal or fruit of some sort in her loin- 
cloth she carefully takes it home, and if an animal, 
makes a place for it, tends and feeds it. After a 
while if the animal has disappeared it is because it 
has entered into the woman. When the child is born 
it is regarded as being in some way the animal or 
fruit and may never eat this animal or fruit in its 
life-time on pain of a serious illness or death. Here 

15 Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy," Vol. I, p. 155. 

16 Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy," Vol. I, p. 191. 

17 Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy," Vol. II, p. 507. 

18 Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy," Vol. II, p. 90. 



208 CHARACTER FORMATION 

we are quite close to the primitive idea of a soul 
which, as is known, is conceived of as a living being 
that can leave the body and return to it. We see 
this analogy more clearly among the Melanesians.^^ 
A pregnant woman fancies that a cocod-nut or bread 
fruit has some kind of connection with her child. 
When the child is born it is the nunu of the cocoa-nut 
or what not, and as in the previous instance the fruit 
is taboo for the child. It is instructive to learn that 
the words atai and tamaniu used on the island of 
Mota^^ to express this relationship are accepted 
equivalents for the English word ^^soul.'' And 
finally we get the extreme of concreteness in the 
Tlinglit tribe ^^ of Northwest America. When a be- 
loved person dies the relatives take the nail from 
the little finger of his right hand and a lock of hair 
from the right side of his head and put them in the 
belt of a young girl. The young woman then fasts 
a prescribed time, and prays just before she breaks 
her fast that the dead person may be born again 
from her. 

These examples show the extremely material and 
concrete character of the savage concepts still 
further emphasised by the widely prevalent belief 
that at the moment of ^'quickening'' some animal 
has entered the woman's womb.^^ jt jg quite evident 
to her that something has entered her, and what more 

i9Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy," Vol. II, p. 84. 

20 Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy," Vol. II, p. 81. 

21 Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy," Vol. Ill, p. 274. 

22 Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy," Vol. I, p. 157 sqq. 



PARTIAL LIBIDO STRIVINGS 209 

natural than to suppose it to be the spirit of the 
animal, bird, or plant that she was looking at when 
she first felt the movements of the child. This belief, 
coupled with the belief of the Minnetarees ^^ or 
Hidatas of the Siouan or Dacotan stock, that there 
is a great cave the Makadistati or *^ House of In- 
fants'' which contains spirit children waiting to be 
born, and it is these children who enter women and 
are born of them, the theme of Maeterlinck's ''Blue 
Bird," is near enough to the common ideas of chil- 
dren with which all are familiar, that babies are 
brought by the stork or the doctor, to need no further 
comment on that score. 

In introducing this subject of the theories of im- 
pregnation I said that it had often been found that 
eating together was symbolic of sexual intercourse. 
There is plenty of anthropological verification for 
that statement. When a man of the Wogait tribe of 
Northern Australia ^^ kills game or gathers vege- 
tables while hunting he gives of this food to his wife 
who is obliged to eat believing that the food will 
cause her to conceive and bring forth a child, while 
among the tribes around the Cairns district in North 
Queensland 2^ the acceptance of food by a woman 
from a man constitutes a marriage ceremony as well 
as being the cause of conception. 

We have seen that when a woman ''quickened" 
she thought the spirit of the animal or plant that 

23 Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy," Vol. Ill, p. 150. 

24 Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy," Vol. I, p. 576. 

25 Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy," Vol. I, p. 577. 



210 CHARACTER FORMATION 

happened to be near had entered her womb, so we 
see now that it is quite as possible to attribute the 
child to food that enters the body by the mouth. 
Here is an extremely interesting relation between 
the sexual and the nutritive and is a deadly parallel 
to the child's belief that it is what its mother has 
eaten that makes the baby grow in her. 

If it is the food that makes the child grow in the 
mother's body it is only a step to the conclusion that 
the exit of the baby therefrom shall be via the alimen- 
tary canal. This cloacal theory of birth is one of 
the commonest formulations of the child mind and 
is of course at the basis of the birth phantasies I 
have already mentioned as being associated with 
movements of the bowels. Have we any corrobora- 
tive evidence that similar ideas were held during the 
childhood of the race? 

The Pennefather blacks of Northeast Australia ^^ 
believe in a being they call Anjea, who was originally 
made by Thunder, and who fashions babies of swamp- 
mud and inserts them in the wombs of women. I 
need hardly point the analogy of swamp-mud to 
feces. 

It is a far cry from this crude concept of savage 
man to the beautiful Greek myth that tells how Pro- 
metheus (Forethought) and Epimetheus (After- 
thought) made man from clay and then how Eros 
breathed into his nostrils the spirit of life and Mi- 
nerva endowed him with a soul, but the distance has 

26Frazer, "Totemism and Exogamy, Vol. I, p. 536. 



PARTIAL LIBIDO STRIVINGS 211 

been spanned by comparative mythology with the 
assistance of the psychoanalytic interpretations. 

The partial libido trends are of importance in 
proportion to their individual capacities to make 
themselves felt in the final result — character, con- 
duct. Each one, like each organ of the body, like 
each cell even, tends to dominate, to become supreme, 
to accumulate all power to the exclusion and irre- 
spective of all others. This is its manifestation of 
the will to power. Bergson says ^^ of species, **each 
species of life behaves as if the general movement 
of life stopped at it instead of passing through it. 
It thinks only for itself — it lives only for itself. 
Hence the numberless struggles that we behold in 
Nature." His statement might equally well apply 
to any organ, to any cell, in fact to any part what- 
ever. He says the same thing of the individual,^^ 
* * each individual retains only a certain impetus from 
the universal vital impulsion and tends to use this 
energy in its own interest. In this consists adapta- 
tion. The species and the individual thus think only 
of themselves — whence rises a possible conflict with 
other forms of life." Here is a conception of the 
conflict between individuals. The universality of 
conflict has already been discussed (Chapter IV) 
and we are already familiar with many of its mani- 
festations at the psychological level. This univer- 

27 Cited by Hinkle, B. M. : Jung's Libido Theory and the Berg- 
sonian Philosophy. New York Med. Jour. May 30, 1914. 

28 Cited by Hinkle, loc. cit. 



212 CHARACTER FORMATION 

sality of conflict is important to keep in mind. In 
this connection it is the basis of the conflicting inter- 
ests of the partial libido strivings the outcome of 
which is so important in character formation. 

Freud ^^ has summed up the situation by laying it 
down that the permanent distinguishing traits of an 
individual are due either to unchanged continuations 
of his original impulses, sublimations of those im- 
pulses, or to reactions formed against them. 

The continuation of original impulses are seen in 
such character traits as gluttony, lust, exhibitionism 
(pompousness), curiosity, domination (Gottmensch). 
The reaction formed against these original impulses 
are seen in such traits as, the whole group of anti- 
pathetic emotions — ^horror of incest, homosexuality, 
and all sexual license — excessive tenderness (when 
it hides an underlying hate), and a whole host of 
symptom reactions seen in the realms of mental dis- 
order — the neuroses, psychoneuroses, and psychoses. 
The enormous results attained by the race by sub- 
limation can well be illustrated by citing some of 
the chapter headings from White's ** Warfare of 
Science with Theology. "^^ For example: **From 
^ Signs and Wonders' to Law in the Heavens''; 
^^From 'The Prince of the Power of the Air' to 
Meteorology"; **From Magic to Chemistry and 
Physics"; **From Miracles to Medicine"; *'From 

29 Brill: "Psychanalvsis." 

30 White, A. D.: "A History of the Warfare of Science with 
Theology in Christendom." 2 Vols. New York, D. Appleton & 
Co., 1903. 



PAETIAL LIBIDO STRIVINGS 213 

Fetich to Hygiene"; **From * Demoniacal Posses- 
sion' to Insanity"; *'From Diabolism to Hysteria"; 
^'From Babel to Comparative Philology"; *^From 
the Dead Sea Legends to Comparative Mythology." 

The path along which mankind has come has been 
a long one but what one of us but retains some insist- 
ent fragment of a superstition, perhaps about the 
unluckiness of thirteen or that because something 
has happened twice it will happen a third time, which 
testifies to and links us with our past. Like the 
dusty traveller we have come a long way on the 
road, and w^e too are dirty, begrimed and travel 
stained, the marks of the journey are upon us. 

To one who has tried to fill in the details of this 
journey, of which this book is only the briefest out- 
line, each individual, everything human will come to 
have a new, a vivid interest. He will begin to see in a 
thousand and one indescribable details the evidences 
of the nature of each individual conflict and indica- 
tions of the happenings along the particular path 
which he has come. Every little quirk of expression, 
facial mannerism, restless, nervous and apparently 
unmotived movement, every slip of the tongue, and 
posture of the body, every superstition or prejudice, 
every interest and every opinion will each be an 
indication fraught with the richest material for illu- 
minating character. As Freud very well puts it: 
**He who has eyes to see, and ears to hear, becomes 
convinced that mortals can hide no secret. Who- 
ever is silent with the lips, tattles with the finger- 
tips; betrayal oozes out of every pore." 



214 CHARACTER FORMATION 

The history of culture is shot through with evi- 
dences of this sort; evidences of the past which are 
retained by the symbols (see Chapter V). Just one 
example to illustrate this phase of the problem. 

A young man consulted me because of failure in 
his capacity to work, general nervousness and falling 
off in efficiency. Neurasthenia it would generally 
be called. He told me, among other things, that some 
time back, when he had been feeling miserable in the 
same way, in the earlier period of his trouble, his 
physician had suggested that he take a rest by tak- 
ing a trip somewhere. He had chosen the Isthmus 
and with his wife, he started. No sooner had he left 
the dock when he was seized with a strong impulse 
to throw himself over-board and had to go below in 
his state-room and lock himself in. 

In the course of our general conversation and in 
answer to my more or less stereotyped questions 
about any previous illness he might have had he mis- 
spoke, saying that he had been given quarter grain 
doses of quinine. Now, of course, no one ever gives 
quarter grain doses of quinine but that dose is often 
given of calomel and calomel is what he had intended 
to say. Here then was an opening, a weak spot in 
his line of defence. Quinine must have unusual 
significance to break through from its repression at 
such an opportunity. My questions elicited the fol- 
lowing: that he had been on the Isthmus upon one 
previous occasion; that he was there over night 
between boats ; that during that evening he had had 



PARTIAL LIBIDO STRIVINGS 215 

a tender passage with a trained nurse stationed at 
the hospital ; my recollection does not serve me as to 
whether he acquired malaria at this time or whether 
quinine was a symbol for the Isthmus because of 
the well known presence of malaria there ; upon the 
occasion of this second trip to the Isthmus the first 
thing he did when he landed was to inquire whether 
that nurse was still there. 

This list of facts serves to explain why he chose 
the Isthmus as his objective when advised to take a 
trip, and they also serve to explain why he wanted 
to jump over-board. He was yielding to an impulse 
of which he was ashamed. But his past had left its 
mark, the record had been written and was there to 
be read by one who knew the language. 

Here, in this field of partial libido strivings, as 
elsewhere, where the meanings strike deep in the 
human soul, the poet has long since preceded the 
scientist. Hear Petrarch speak from his solitude at 
Vaucluse : 

^'Here at Vaucluse I make war upon my senses, 
and treat them as my enemies. My eyes, which have 
drawn me into a thousand difficulties, see no longer 
either gold or precious stones, or ivory, or purple ; 
they behold nothing save the water, the firmament, 
and the rocks. The only female who comes within 
their sight is a swarthy old woman, dry and parched 
as the Lybian deserts. My ears are no longer 
courted by those harmonious instruments and voices 
which have so often transported my soul ; they hear 



216 CHARACTER FORMATION 

nothing but the lowing of the cattle, the bleating of 
the sheep, the warbling of the birds, and the murmurs 
of the river. 

**I keep silence from noon till night. There is no 
one to converse with ; for the good people, employed 
in spreading their nets, or tending their vines and 
V/ orchards, are no great adepts at conversation. I 
often content myself with the dry bread of the fisher- 
man, and even eat it with pleasure. Nay, I almost 
prefer it to white bread. This old fisherman, who 
is as hard as iron, earnestly remonstrates against 
my manner of life; and assures me that I can not 
long hold out. I am, on the contrary, convinced that 
it is easier to accustom one 's self to a plain diet than 
to the luxuries of a feast. I am fond of the fish 
with which this stream abounds, and I sometimes 
amuse myself with spreading the nets. As to my 
dress, there is an entire change ; you would take me 
for a labourer, or a shepherd." 



CHAPTER X 
EXTROVERSION AND INTROVERSION 

There have been a number of efforts to classify 
men according to their temperament or their way 
of orienting tliemselves towards certain problems or 
aspects of nature. Among the most notable is that 
of Ostwald ^ who divided learned men and geniuses 
into two great classes romanticists and classicists. 
The romanticists are distinguished by their rapid 
reaction, their extremely prompt production and 
abundance of ideas and projects ; they are admirable 
teachers, brilliant, and with a contagious enthusiasm, 
they attract numerous pupils, found schools and ex- 
ercise a great personal influence. The classicists, 
are on the contrary, of slow reaction, they produce 
with much effort, are poorly fitted for teaching and 
for direct, personal action, lack enthusiasm, are 
paralysed by their own critique, live removed and 
shut up in themselves, have scarcely any pupils but 
give their life to the achievement of a perfect work 
which often secures for them a posthumous celebrity. 

Nietzsche's well known division of men into two 
camps, the apollonian and the dionysian, is very well 

1 Ostwald, W.: "Grosse Manner," Leipzig, 1910, cited by Jung, 
C. G. : Contribution a I'etude des types psycliologiques. Arch, de 
Psych. Tome XIII, No. 52, Dec, 1913. 

217 



218 CHARACTER FORMATION 

set forth in a few words by Mencken.^ **Epic 
poetry, sculpture, painting and story-telling are 
apollonic: they represent, not life itself, but some 
man's visualised idea of life. But dancing, great 
deeds and, in some cases, music, are dionysian ; they 
are part and parcel of life as some actual human 
being, or collection of human beings, is living it." 

William James has seen these distinctions and 
endeavoured to define them according to his lights.^ 
He sees the same tendency to split men up into two 
mutually opposed groups in whatever field of human 
endeavour we look. In manners there are the for- 
malists and the free-and-easy; in government, the 
authoritarians and the anarchists; in literature, 
purists or academicals and realists; in art, classics 
and romantics; and in philosophy, rationalists and 
empiricists. In defining this last pair of terms he 
says, '^ * empiricist' meaning your lover of facts in 
all their crude variety, * rationalist' meaning your 
devotee to abstract and eternal principles." James 
himself prefers to use the terms ^^tender-minded" 
and ' ' tough-minded. ' ' The qualities which the mem- 
bers of these two groups show are, according to 
him : 

The tender-minded are rationalistic (going by 
***principles"), intellectualistic, idealistic, optimis- 
tic, religious, free-willist, monistic, dogmatical. 

The tough -minded are empiricists (going by 

2 Mencken, H. L,: "The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche." 
Boston, 1908. 

3 James, W.: "Pragmatism," New York, 1912. 



EXTROVERSION AND INTROVERSION 219 

**facts"), sensationalistic, materialistic, pessimistic, 
irreligious, fatalistic, pluralistic, sceptical. 

With respect to this whole problem it would seem 
that there should be some broader general principle 
under which this body of facts could be grouped. 
This principle I believe exists in the terms of libido. . 
In other words the broadest basis upon which men ] 
can be divided into two camps rests upon the answer \ 
to this question. Where is the libido going? Without? 
or Within? Does the individual find his main inter- 
ests outside himself? Does he attach his libido to 
objects in the outside world? or does he find his main 
interests within? in contemplating the world only 
as he sees it reflected within himself? Is he of the 
extroverted or introverted type ? 

Jung defines these two types very simply."* He 
says : ' ^ The introverted type is characterised by the 
fact that he applies his horme^ chiefly to himself, 
i.e., he finds the unconditioned values within himself, 
but the extroverted type applies his horme to the 
external world, to the object, the non-ego, i.e., he 
finds the unconditioned value outside himself. The 
introverted considers everything under the aspect of 
the value of his own ego; the extroverted depends 
upon the value of his object. ' ' 

From this point of view we see that the romanti- 
cists of Ostwald are extroverted, his classicists intro- 
verted : the dionysians of Nietzsche are extroverted, 

4 Jung, G. G.: Psychological Understanding. Jour. Alnormal 
Psych., Feb.-March, 1915. 

5 The term Jung suggests as a substitute for libido. 



220 CHARACTER FORMATION 

his apollonians, introverted; the tough-minded of 
James are extroverted, the tender-minded, intro- 
verted. 

EXTKOVEESION 

To the extent that our interests flow outward and 
attach themselves to objects and events in the outer 
world of reahty we are extroverted. In fact things 
in the outer world do not exist for me unless I prb-^-- 
ject, so to speak, my libido, my interest upon them. 
The chair that is opposite me as I write did not exist 
for me a few moments ago and only began to exist 
as I was looking about for an example of this mechan- 
ism and then its existence was only a very limited 
one. I thought of the chair solely as a useful object 
for this specific illustration, beyond that the chair 
had no meaning for me at that time, any other qual- 
ities that I might think of at some other time as 
belonging to it, or any other qualities that some one 
else might think of as belonging to it had no existence 
for me. For the time being it stood only as a good 
illustration of what I was writing about — it had no 
other meaning. 

To be a little simpler. A moment's thought will 
show how a chair may mean different things to dif- 
ferent people or different things at different times 
to the same person. To a tired person a chair is 
something to sit in : to a salesman in a furniture store 
it is something to sell: to a carpenter it represents 
problems of construction : to a mischievous boy hunt- 
ing material for a bon-fire it may be something to 



EXTROVERSION AND INTROVERSION 221 

burn; and to the same person at different times it 
may have first one and then another of these mean- 
ings. The meaning in each instance depends upon 
what we contemplate doing with reference to the 
chair, how we are going to use it, not what it is in 
itself. Bergson^ puts it in his inimitable way by 
saying, ^^The more physics advances, the more it 
effaces the individuality of bodies and even of the 
particles into which the scientific imagination began 
by decomposing them; bodies and corpuscles tend to 
dissolve into a universal interaction. Our percep- 
tions give us the plan of our eventual action on 
things much more than that of things themselves. 
The outlines we find in objects simply mark what 
we can attain and modify in them. The lines we see 
traced through matter are just the paths on which 
we are called to move. Outlines and paths have 
declared themselves in the measure and proportion 
that consciousness has prepared for action on unor- 
ganised matter — that is to say, in the measure and 
proportion that intelligence has been formed. It is 
doubtful whether animals built on a different plan — 
a moUusk or an insect, for instance — cut matter up 
along the same articulations. It is not indeed neces- 
sary that they should separate it into bodies at all." 
We therefore may be said to get from an object 
jDvily so much as we give to it. The chair again plays 
no particular part in our interest if we do not give 
our interest to the chair, project our interest upon 
it, exteriorise ourselves to that extent, that is to the 

6 "Creative Evolution." 



222 CHARACTER FORMATION 

extent that the chair as a symbol can represent us. 
The chair is a symbol for that portion of ourselves 
which is represented by our interest in it. To be 
still more explicit. 

If I simply look at the chair and see something to 
sit in then the chair represents only that part of my 
psyche that is interested in sitting. If now I begin 
to examine how the chair is made, to examine the 
mortised joints, the turned rungs, then the chair 
takes on all this added meaning. And finally if I 
note its style, recognise it as belonging to a certain 
French period my interest is immensely broader 
while if this particular period is correlated with cer- 
tain artistic standards represented by the furniture 
and that again with certain social and political con- 
ditions it can easily be seen how, from the starting 
point of the chair, I may be led ultimately to a con- 
sideration of anything within the field of human 
endeavour. The chair comes therefore to mean more 
and more as my interest in it grows, it returns to me 
the interest I took in it in that what it gives is after 
all only what I originally projected upon it or used 
it to symbolise. This is the viewpoint of the human- 
istic movement in philosophy — so-called from the 
dictum of Protagoras that *'man is the measure of 
all things." In the Papyri of Philonous, already 
quoted from, Protagoras is made to say, ^^And so it 
seems to us that we come into a world already made 
and incapable of change. But this is not the truth. 
We *find' a world made for us, because we are the 
heirs of bygone ages, profiting by their work, and it 



EXTROVERSION AND INTROVERSION 223 

may be suffering for their folly. But we can in part 
remake it, and reform a world that has slowly formed 
itself. But of all this how could we get an inkling 
if we had not begun by perceiving that of all things, 
Man, each man, is the measure?" 

This is the principle of the extroversion of the 
libido. We project ourselves into the world and then 
rediscover ourselves in these projected symbols. 

For example: in the effort to secure power by 
continuing to live, by conquering old age and disease, 
in this effort to gain personal immortality the physi- 
cian becomes for the patient the incarnation of this 
aspect of himself. The physician is that projected 
portion of himself with which he endeavours to con- 
quer this specific type of destructive agency, he is 
the symbol of the patient's effort to transcend the 
limitations of life.'^ Faith in the physician is then 
in this sense faith in himself but back of that, faith 
in his father, who was, in the history of his develop- 
ment, the original source of all authority. 

This is not only an example of the extroversion of 
the libido but it is an illustration of how the symbol 
is utilised to bring to bear the very strongest con- 
structive forces, how it is used to give the greatest 
possible sanction to all efforts aimed at the largest 
personal development of power and efficiency. 
Again we see the enormous energic values of the 
symbol. 

The discussion of this aspect of libido values might 

7 See Jelliffe, S. E.: The Technique of Psychoanalysis. The 
Psychoanalytic Review, Vol. Ill, No. 1, Jan., 1916. 



224 CHARACTER FORMATION 

be made as broad as the whole range of human insti- 
tutions. The enormous energic value of the symbol 
and the pragmatic value of this type of mechanism 
is perhaps best seen in the example given and in its 
complement — religion. 

The Holy Family is symbolic of the family group, 
as the infant first learned to know it, and in which 
he found complete satisfaction for his love and com- 
plete security, his father the greatest and most 
powerful of men, his mother the sweetest and most 
beautiful of women. 

From primitive man up through the ages religion 
has played its naighty part in urging man along the 
path of progress, sometimes by love, sometimes by 
the cruelest scourings, but always on, unremittingly, 
irresistibly on. For the savage, the gods are men, 
chiefs perhaps, but still men. From this simplest 
conception of a god progress begins by, first remov- 
ing the god further and further in both time and 
space. He is a former chief about whom wonderful 
tales are told and he lives ^^over there," across the 
river or on an island in the sea. The span of time 
and space become ever greater, the god's origin re- 
cedes into an ever more remote past and the Heaven 
in which complete love and security will be the 
reward for a good life, in which the lost omnipotence 
will be regained, is put otf into an ever receding 
future. 

And finally the qualities of the gods themselves 
become changed in like manner. From their original 
concrete human character they become more and 



EXTROVERSION AND INTROVERSION 225 

more ideal, they partake more and more of the qual- 
ities of the unconscious wish that would clothe the 
image of God in the garments of the father as he 
once seemed. 

As the God recedes in time and space and as his 
qualities become less concretely human and more 
ideal they too become more abstract until the human 
element seems quite to have vanished as for example 
in Matthew Arnold's expression^ of faith in ^^a 
power not ourselves that makes for righteousness" 
which has been referred to as the ^irreducible mini- 
mum" of religion. 

And so the great God-father reaches out and takes 
the hand of weak, helpless man in his infancy and 
supports him as he learns to walk, keeping always 
in front of him and encouraging him to keep trying 
and as from tottering he is able to stand and then 
to take a step and then another the hand is gradually 
withdrawn, though at first always near, and always 
held out to grasp in need until finally man not only 
stands, and walks, but need no longer watch each 
step but with shoulders thrown back and head erect 
he looks up to his Ideal which while he can now only 
see it in the dim distance is bright and clear and 
unmistakable. 

I have spoken all along of extroversion as the pro- 
jection outward of the libido. I have used the term 
projection because I thought it preferable in that 
discussion. A note of warning is needed however, 

8 Cited by Stiles, P. G. : "The Nervous System and Its Conserva- 
tion." W. B. Saunders Co., Phila., 1914. 



226 CHARACTER FORMATION 

because projection has a teclmical meaning in psy- 
choanalytic usage and applies to the mechanism 
which is the ambivalent opposite of extroversion as 
I have just described it. I would have been techni- 
cally more correct to have used the word transfer, a 
translation of the German technical term Ueber- 
tragung, originally used to describe this phenom- 
enon. 

And now to the mechanism of projection as that 
word is technically used. In the projection mechan- 
ism the libido, the love, the interest goes out to the 
object but the result is not satisfaction of the crav- 
ing which the going out represented. The love does 
not come back, it is frustrated, it finds itself up 
against a stone wall, there is no response in kind. 
This is the mechanism in paranoia and paranoid 
types of reaction for many people react in this way 
about whom there is no suspicion of mental disease. 
It is the type of reaction that is not infrequently 
seen in a subordinate towards his superior. The 
superior represents the father image from which 
guidance and love is desired. Inasmuch, however, 
as this desire for love and guidance can never be 
satisfied adequately because it is based upon infantile 
demands the craving continues. That is, the love is 
given to the object and suffering is the result because 
it is not reciprocated in kind. This suffering is not 
correctly interpreted as to its source but felt as if 
coming from the beloved person and so pain is re- 
turned for love. This is the feeling basis for the 
ideas of persecution which such individuals have. 



EXTROVERSION AND INTROVERSION 227 

They feel that they are being injured, plotted against, 
are the objects of all sorts of subtle intrigues and 
the like. Such a feeling is often at the basis of a 
strongly developed tendency to gossip, to listen to 
what so-and-so has said and perhaps to read some 
sinister reference into the remarks and then pass 
them on in return for still more material to either 
gloat over or tremble about in this all too close to a 
pathological world.^ 

This tendency to find outside ourselves the expla- 
nations and the excuses for our own shortcomings is 
most admirably expressed by Shakespeare. In King 
Lear he makes Edmund, the bastard son of Gloster, 



Edm, This is the excellent foppery of the world ! 
that, when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeit 
of our own behaviour), we make guilty of our dis- 
asters the sun, the moon, and stars; as if we were 
villains on necessity ; fools by heavenly compulsion ; 
knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical predom- 
inance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an en- 
forced obedience of planetary influence ; and all that 
we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. An admir- 

9 The hypothesis, first advanced by Freud, that the projection 
mechanism produces the result of feeling oneself persecuted because 
the individual is at the homosexual stage of libido development will 
not be discussed here. The subject is more appropriate for a work 
on psychopathology. The comment is irresistible, however, that if 
this is true, and many believe it is, including myself, that the 
mechanism is for the purpose of driving the individual away from 
sources of homosexual satisfaction, which can never be construc- 
tively advantageous to the race, and encouraging him on the path 
of progress. 



228 CHARACTER FORMATION 

able evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish 
disposition on the charge of a star ! My father com- 
pounded with my mother under the dragon's tail; 
and my nativity was under ursa major: so that it 
follows, I am rough and lecherous. — ^I should have 
been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firma- 
ment twinkled on my bastardising. 

INTKOVERSIOlSr 

Introversion is the opposite of extroversion. In- 
stead of transferring the libido to an object without 
the libido is turned within. We can best come to an 
understanding of what is meant by this, and the 
meaning of the results that follow if we will revert 
to the process already briefly referred to (Chapter 
VIII) of the building up of the concept of *^self," of 
the ego-consciousness. 

We have seen that the distinction between the 
^^self and the * 'not-self" was slow of growth. In 
fact it is never fully acquired. Preyer 's ^^ boy as 
late as nineteen months of age when told to ^^Grive 
the shoe'' picked it from the floor and handed it to 
him, but when told to *'Give the foot" tried to pick 
that up with both hands and hand it to him in the 
same way that he had the shoe. Thus he failed at 
this late date to appreciate what belonged to him and 
what did not. He attempted to hand his foot to his 

10 Preyer, W.: "The Mind of the Child," Chap. XIX. The De- 
velopment of the Feeling of Self, the "I"-Feeling. New York, D. 
Appleton & Co., 1898. 



EXTROVERSION AND INTROVERSION 229 

father as he had his shoe ; he treated it in the same 
way, as if it were not a part of himself. 

Professor Hall ^^ mentions a baby as staring 
steadily at its hand and the trying to grasp the hand 
looked at with the same hand. Miss Shinn 's ^^ niece 
** tried to flourish her arm and go on sucking her 
thumb at the same time, and could not imagine what 
had suddenly snatched the cherished thumb away." 

At the risk of repeating I will revert to the illustra- 
tion already used, Chapter VIII, of the creeping in- 
fant who picks up everything and carries it at once to 
its mouth. The mouth is a primitive organ of touch 
of great value. The type of experience which results 
from putting some indifferent object in its mouth is 
quite different from that which results from putting 
a part of its own body in its mouth. In the first in- 
stance there is a resulting sensation in the mouth 
only, in the second instance there is an additional 
sensation, a sensation in that portion of the body 
which has been so treated. 

It is by such experiments which focus two or more 
sensory qualities in one experience that the distinc- 
tion between self and environment is gradually built 
up, that the concept of self is slowly integrated. In 
the above cited experience two qualities of touch sen- 
sation are integrated, in the same way the sight of 
the moving hand is integrated with the joint and 

11 Hall, G. S. : Some Aspects of the Early Sense of Self. Am. 
Jour. Psych., Vol. IX, No. 3. 

12 Shinn, M. W. : "The Biography of a Baby." Boston and New 
York, Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1900. 



230 CHARACTER FORMATION 

muscle sensations which bring about the motion, the 
sensation of touch with the motor sensations which 
have moved the hand to the touched object, the sen- 
sations of sound and of sight, touch and taste, motor 
sensations, and so on indefinitely through an increas- 
ingly complex series of integrations the ego-concept 
is laboriously constructed. 

Despite the great number and varied character of 
the experiences that make for the construction of the 
ego-concept there always remain serious gaps, de- 
fects in the structure. There are certain portions of 
our bodies that are never adequately included in our 
conscious concept of ourselves, such portions, for 
example, as the back of the head, and the region be- 
tween the shoulder blades. Other portions fail to 
get into the scheme less obviously. 

We are familiar with the small boy who carefully 
polishes the front part of his shoes and leaves the 
heels untouched and who likewise absolutely neglects 
the back of his head when brushing his hair. One 
should read Miss Shinn's description of her niece, 
who, in bending over backwards accidentally hit the 
back of her head on the floor and by so doing really 
discovered, for the first time, this region. 

The indeterminateness of the relation, individual- 
environment, is testified to by common customs ; ways 
of feeling and expressions. A gift from a friend 
long since dead is cherished because it is felt some- 
how to contain or to have been a part of the dead 
person in life, while we go away from a strange city 



EXTROVERSION AND INTROVERSION 231 

carrying with us an impression of it upon our mem- 
ory. 

Among primitive peoples this confusion is very 
much in evidence. Instances have already been cited 
which illustrate this point. I will add only a few 
briefly. 

Among the Betsileo of Madagascar ^^ the nobles 
of the tribe are attended by men called ramanga 
whose function it is to eat all the nail-parings and 
lick up all the spilt blood of their noble masters so 
that sorcerers may not get possession of them and 
so, on the principles of contagious magic, work harm 
to them. Among the Arabs of Moab ^^ a childless 
woman will borrow the robe of a woman who has 
borne many children that she may acquire the fruit- 
fulness of its owner. The primitive man also re- 
gards his name as a part of himself which he pro- 
tects with elaborate care from becoming known to 
his enemies.^^ Cursing an enemy by name becomes, 
therefore, a potent means of injury, while to mention 
one's own name freely is a dangerous practice for 
each time one's name passes the lips, the owner parts 
with a vital bit of himself. 

Primitive man may thus be said to be relatively un- 
differentiated, in his own mind at least, from his en- 

isFrazer, J. G.: "The Golden Bough," (3rd ed.) Pt. II. Taboo 
and the Perils of the Soul, Chap. V, Tabooed Things. 

i^Frazer, J. G.: "The Golden Bough," (3rd ed.) Pt. I. The 
Magic Art and the Evolution of Kings, Vol. I, Chap. III. 

isFrazer, J. G.: "The Golden Bough," (3rd ed.) Pt. 11. Taboo 
and the Perils of the Soul, Chap. VI, Tabooed words. 



232 CHARACTER FORMATION 

vironment. His personality is diffuse, spread out all 
over the world of things, has not yet been integrated 
and at all clearly defined. 

One of the very best illustrations ^^ of the intimate 
association and the lack of differentiation between 
man at the primitive cultural levels and the forces 
of nature is seen in the way in which they treat their 
divine kings. The ruler of the tribe, a godman, is 
at the very centre of the forces of the universe and 
anything that he does may influence the world for 
good or for bad as the case may be. He is there- 
fore hedged in by an enormously complex system of 
taboos which control his every act. Now it is obvi- 
ous if he is in such close association with nature, and 
that the whole welfare of the tribe depends in this 
intimate way upon him, that he must not be per- 
mitted to get sick or grow old and feeble, for if he 
gets sick and grows old and feeble then the forces of 
nature will fail, the tribe will be in danger of epi- 
demics, droughts, poor crops, and the like, and so 
to prevent such dire catastrophe the divine king is 
killed in the prime of life and in the fulness of his 
health that his spirit may be passed on unimpaired 
in strength to his successor. 

The introverted person is one who, instead of 
transferring his libido to external objects, receives, so 
to speak, these objects, or their effects, within him- 
self and so he views the world from within, he con- 
siders the world according to the effect it has upon 

i6Frazer, J. G.: "The Golden Bougli," (3rd ed.) Pt. III. The 
Dying God, Chap. II. The Killing of the Divine King. 



EXTKOVERSION AND INTROVERSION 233 

him. Taking our viewpoint from the external world, 
this is brought about by the process of what is called 
introjection or an entering into the individual of in- 
fluences from without. 

This feeling of influence from without, as already 
suggested (Chapter VIII) is extremely common in 
the most typical of introversion psychoses, dementia 
prascox. Thus one patient hears voices talk to him 
from all sorts of sources. He hears the clock talk- 
ing; he can hear the creaking wagon wheel, as it goes 
by, talking; and even people ^s foot-steps and the 
watch speak to him. He hears the human voice talk- 
ing through the birds, leaves of the trees, flowers and 
various inanimate objects. He is disturbed by vi- 
sions and all sorts of magical things — electricity, 
wireless telegraphy, thought reading, and bad in- 
fluences from certain people play about him. His 
psychosis has plunged him to a lower cultural level, 
his reactions remind us of the cultural stage of ani- 
mism. 

All of these phenomena may be looked at as evi- 
dences of a lessened capacity for integration of the 
personality, of separating the self from the not- 
self. The environment has become strangely blended 
with these patients ' personality by the process of in- 
trojection, and as the environment thus introjects it- 
self into the personality the personality correspond- 
ingly swells and loses its definiteness. One patient 
sees a certain mystic significance in the arrangement 
of the stars about the moon; another has lost the 
-feeling of personal identity with respect to his own 



234 CHARACTER FORMATION 

body for when asked when he entered the army said, 
*'It was centuries and centuries ago ; not I but a body 
just like my remembrance around 1903/' while an- 
other patient believes his body is changing in size. 

The sense of mystery is frequently expressed. 
One patient for a long time has been seeing peculiar 
objects the nature of which were not clear to him but 
of the auditory hallucinations he said they were not 
real voices but simply things which seemed to come 
into his mind, also he said he heard voices talking 
inside his head but thought that these were the ex- 
pressions of his own mind. He still retained a grasp 
upon reality, although it is evident that his hold 
had been seriously loosened for his thoughts had be- 
come audible. This grasp was quite completely lost 
by the patient who believed that mental telepathy was 
** working upon him" and that he was regarded as a 
spy. He heard many voices saying all conceivable 
things against him, so that he grew desperate and 
attempted suicide. Asked to describe the auditory 
hallucinations, he says he cannot put his impression 
of them into words, that he did not hear distinct 
voices, but ^* foreign thoughts came slowly creeping 
into his brain, thoughts not his own, emanating from 
the mind of some one at a distance.'' Upon one 
occasion he thought that a dream was projected upon 
him by a supervisor through ^^ thought transmis- 
sion. ' ' 

The vagueness with which a person may conceive 
of himself is shown by the patients who have no 
clear appreciation of who they are, who parade un- 



EXTKOVERSION AND INTKOVEESION 235 

der some one else's name, claim to be some noted 
person, even a criminal. This type of reaction be- 
comes mucli more archaic when the identification is 
with historic personages. The extreme limit of 
this is found in a patient who practically identifies 
himself with the universe. Among other things he 
says he was Adam's father; that he had lived in his 
present bodily form 35 years, but that he has lived 
in other bodies 30 millions of years, not continually 
but periodically ; that he has used 6,000,000 different 
bodies. He says that he was Moses, that also he was 
the father of Moses, and that he performed the ten 
miracles that liberated the people of Egypt. If he 
extended his left arm into the universe it would go 
inside heaven, also his left brain lobe. Paradise cor- 
responds with the right arm and the right brain lobe. 
The headquarters of these two are in the forearms 
and in the brain ^^dot." The brain ^^dot" is some- 
thing like the central office of a building, or it can 
be compared to a hand holding a bunch of strings to 
balloons which float above. Hell and Purgatory 
have corresponding positions in the two lower limbs. 
Tartarus and Gehenna correspond to the feet. 
Hades and Oblivion correspond to the knees. He 
says he is both male and female with one mind and 
body controlling both. He has to be one to be the 
father and creator of the various races and elements 
of the human organisation. The stars in themselves 
are pieces of his body which have been torn apart 
by torture and persecution in various ages of past 
history in the wars between the righteous and the un- 



236 CHAEACTER FORMATION 

righteous. These stars will come down on earth in 
human form to bear witness for him towards the 
end of the millennium. And much more of the same 
sort wherein, among other things, he compares the 
structure of the solar system to the structure of the 
human body, and identifies himself with portions of 
it. It took him 300 millions of years to perfect the 
first fully developed human form. 

Again we are reminded of the way in which primi- 
tive man regarded his tribal king. The king was the 
individual in whom was concentrated all the great 
creative energy of their restricted universe. He was 
looked to to see that the rain fell and watered the 
crops, that the cattle and the women were fruitful, 
that the tribe was successful in war. It was because 
he was a carrier of enormous stores of energy that 
he must be treated, as Frazer puts it,^^ like a Leyden 
jar. His foot must not touch the ground and the 
sun must not shine upon him or he would lose his 
power. Not only this but such a discharge of energy 
would be dangerous to those about. 

Introversion, at least when pathological, tends to 
bring about a retracing of the stages along which 
the psyche has come. Of course it is not intended to 
convey the idea that introversion brings about con- 
ditions that exactly reproduce stages in ontogenetic 
or phylogenetic development. The application of the 
law of recapitulation to the sphere of the psyche is 
subject to the same sort of qualifications as it is in 

17 Frazer, J. G.: "The Golden Bough," (3rd ed.) Pt. VII. Balder 
the Beautiful, Vol. I, Chap. I. Between Heaven and Earth. 



EXTROVERSION AND INTROVERSION 237 

its application to the body. The law of recapitula- 
tion holds but with many variations in the way of 
abridgments and short cuts which distort the out- 
ward appearances at times very greatly. The view- 
point, it is believed, is a valuable one, but in its ap- 
plication the process of thinking should be kept in 
mind rather than the content of thought. The view 
maintained here is that in the introversion types of 
psychoses the patient reverts to ways of thinking 
that belong to earlier stages of development. 

Introversion brings about a return to a less clearly 
defined individuality and a greater range of identifi- 
cation with the environment. V^ithdrawal from 
reality is a withdrawal from contact at higher levels 
but a return to a phylogenetically older and more 
diffuse form of contact. 

From the argument thus far it must not be con- 
cluded that extroversion or introversion, more par- 
ticularly the latter, is always an undesirable or ab- 
normal character. If we will turn again to the list 
of characteristics given by Professor James of the 
tough-minded and tender-minded types we will 
appreciate that none of them are wholly undesirable. 
On the contrary they are all desirable if properly 
controlled and made to subserve useful ends. It is 
only when they fail in this that they pass the bounds 
of normality or desirability. 

When we see extroversion in a severe hysteria or 
a maniacal excitement or introversion manifested 
in a psychoneurosis or a dementia praecox there is no 
question but that the degree here is abnormal, the 



238 CHARACTER FORMATION 

result decides that issue. But we constantly see peo- 
ple so extroverted that they are simply confused by 
the multiplicity of objects and the intricacy of their 
relations and seem unable to find any path through 
them. On the other hand we find people of otherwise 
good mind so introverted that they are severely 
hampered, in their comfort at least, by superstitions, 
about thirteen perhaps or starting anything on Fri- 
day. 

Extroversion and introversion are only different 
aspects of life. Whole civilisations partake of the 
character of one rather than the other. The East- 
ern civilisation is essentially based upon introver- 
sion, the Western upon extroversion and while each 
is incomprehensible to the other, 

"Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never 
the twain shall meet.'' 

yet each produces something which the other can not. 
This is equally true of individuals. The extreme 
examples of these types cannot understand each 
other. It is not by accident that James has used 
tough-minded and tender-minded as the terms to de- 
scribe them. The tough-minded empiricist is espe- 
cially well equipped to beat his way through new 
reality situations, to blaze trails on the frontier of 
progress. The tender-minded rationalist is espe- 
cially calculated to conserve all that is valuable that 
the other accomplishes and weave it into enduring 
bonds of sympathy to cement the herd into effective 
unity. 



EXTROVERSION AND INTROVERSION 239 

Either one of these tendencies unchecked by the 
other is liable to run amuck but for the fullest expres- 
sion of that *^ moving equilibrium'' we call life it 
would seem that a balanced interplay of both tend- 
encies were necessary. 



Whenever a new method is introduced into science 
one of the inevitable results is a bringing out of all 
the old material and submitting it to re-examination 
by the new procedures, a recasting of the old formulae 
in the new moulds, in short an examination of all of 
the positions hitherto attained and their revaluation 
on the basis of the newer concepts. Many of the con- 
cepts which had always been taken for granted and 
used uncritically in the process of reasoning must 
now be submitted to critical scrutiny to see just where 
they stand in relation to the new order of things and 
whether their previous use has been altogether war- 
ranted. 

Such a concept is that of * individual" as it has 
been used in the domain of psychology. What con- 
stitutes an *' individual' ' and what defines and limits 
the ** individual" has never been formulated 
because it was so obvious that the questions never 
were asked, and so the concept * 'individual" has 
gone the broad and easy way toward static concrete- 
ness and must needs be rescued, shaken up, rejuve- 
nated, born again in a more plastic state so that it 
can be moulded and made to fit, in a useful way, into 
the new structure that is being raised. 



240 CHARACTER FORMATION 

The necessity for this has arisen as a result of 
the introduction of the genetic concept into psy- 
chology. This genetic concept while it has been rec- 
ognised for a long time by psychologists, as well as 
by biologists in general, has only lately come to have 
an actual place in the workaday world of the prac- 
tical psychologist, more partixjularly the psychia- 
trist, and so has only recently been in a position to 
necessitate a revaluation of the concept. Pathologi- 
cal mental symptoms can not seek their explanation 
in the history of the development of the mind unless 
the concept ^4ndividuaP' is given a much different 
and a much broader meaning than that implied even 
in the life history of a single person that begins at 
birth and ends at death. 

We have already seen that the distinction between 
the individual and the environment at the psychologi- 
cal level is at first, both in the history of the individ- 
ual and of the race, a very vague one, if indeed it 
can be said to exist at all. We have seen too that 
this distinction is of gradual growth but that it is 
never fully effected and under the influence of cer- 
tain abnormal conditions tends to break down. Let 
us examine the evidence a little further. 

Who shall say, for example, at just what point the 
food that is taken into the gastro-intestinal tract loses 
its quality as environment and becomes a part of the 
individual? And similarly, who can answer a 
parallel question with reference to the oxygen taken 
into the lungs during inspiration? The real signifi- 



EXTROVERSION AND INTROVERSION 241 

cance of this question is understood when we remem- 
ber that neither the gastro-intestinal tube nor the 
air passages are really within the body at all but are 
invaginations of its surface. Similar questions may 
be asked about substances given out from the body. 
Either secretions from the gastro-intestinal tract 
or gases excreted from the pulmonary air vesicles. 

Then again the same questions may be asked with 
respect to the anergic conditions at the surface of 
the body, especially with reference to conditions of 
temperature and electrical states which merge into 
the encompassing environment and constitute a bor- 
derland territory. 

The interplay of forces between the individual and 
the environment is constant and never-ending. The 
effects of foods, drugs, heat and cold, sun-light, 
sounds, and other contacts of the environment, par- 
ticularly at points of lowered threshold to special 
kinds of stimuli (the sense organs) are, we know, 
very great. These effects, however, we always think 
of as exclusively for the purpose of analysing the 
environment to enable the individual to act upon it 
more intelligently — more efficiently. Perhaps we 
have thought altogether too much of the nervous sys- 
tem as a source of energy and too little of the sources 
of energy supply other than food and oxygen. 

With the hundreds of thousands of receptors at 
the surface of the body is it not possible that here is 
a real and material source of energy which has been, 
largely at least, overlooked? I have in mind the 



242 CHARACTER FORMATION 

observation of Fabre ^^ upon the habits of the Black- 
bellied Tarantula or Narbonne Lycosa (Lycosa nar- 
bonnensis). The young of this spider live for seven 
months, without, so far as Fabre could discover, tak- 
ing any food whatever. Fabre suggests that they 
are able, perhaps, to directly utilise the sun's rays 
as a source of energy. Perhaps, after all, our idea 
that solar energy cannot be used as food by animals 
until it has been fixed by chlorophyl will have to be 
modified. 

We are familiar with the give and take between 
the individual and his environment at the social level. 
The influence that a person exercises upon those 
about him and the influence of his associates upon 
him. We see this influence radiate in ever widen- 
ing circles from a public speaker or writer until it 
often outbursts the span of his individual life, while 
the germ plasm hands down actual material particles 
to succeeding generations to stop — Who shall say 
where 1 

We are familiar with this give and take interplay 
at lower levels. We see the mechanic by repeated 
blows of the hammer gradually shape a piece of 
metal to suit his needs and we can understand that 
the resistance of the metal has called forth this 
particular form of effort. 

I think it also useful to consider the individual 
in the same way at still lower levels. At the level 
of energy in the form of heat, light, sound waves, 

18 Fabre, J. H.: "The Life of the Spider." New York, Dodd, 
Mead & Co., 1914. 



EXTROVERSION AND INTROVERSION 243 

electricity. The individual then becomes, not a 
something apart from the environment and there- 
fore apart from contact with the rest of the universe, 
but a place where innumerable forces are for the 
time being concentrated. In that sense the individ- 
ual is only a transmitter and transmuter of energy 
while the terms individual and environment are only 
the two extremes of this relationship. 

Bergson ^^ states this difficulty admirably. He 
says : ^ ^ No doubt, it is hard to decide, even in the 
organised world, what is individual and what is not. 
The difficulty is great, even in the animal kingdom; 
with plants it is almost insurmountable. This diffi- 
culty is, moreover, due to profound causes, on which 
we shall dwell later. We shall see that individual- 
ity admits of any number of degrees, and that it is 
not fully realised anywhere, even in man. But that 
is no reason for thinking it is not a characteristic 
property of life. The biologist who proceeds as a 
geometrician is too ready to take advantage here of 
our inabihty to give a precise and general definition 
of individuality. A perfect definition applies only 
to a completed reality; now, vital properties are 
never entirely realised, though always on the way to 
become so; they are not so much states as tenden- 
cies. And a tendency achieves all that it aims at only 
if it is not thwarted by another tendency. How, 
then, could this occur in the domain of life, where, as 
we shall show, the interaction of antagonistic tenden- 
cies is always implied! In particular, it may be 

19 Bergson, "Creative Evolution." 



244 CHARACTER FORMATION 

said of individuality that, while the tendency to in- 
dividuate is everywhere present in the organised 
world, it is everywhere opposed by the tendency 
towards reproduction. For the individuality to be 
perfect, it would be necessary that no detached part 
of the organism could live separately. But then re- 
production would be impossible. For what is re- 
production, but the building up of a new organism 
with a detached fragment of the old? Individual- 
ity therefore harbours its enemy at home. Its very 
need of perpetuating itself in time condemns it never 
to be complete in space. The biologist must take due 
account of both tendencies in every instance, and it 
is therefore useless to ask him for a definition of in- 
dividuality that shall fit all cases and work automat- 
ically. ' ' 



CHAPTEE XI 
ORGAN INFERIORITY 

It is, of course, not a newly discovered fact that 
many persons have defective organs, organs that 
function poorly, that do not bear stresses as they 
should, and that often exhibit anatomical character- 
istics which indicate that they are developmentally 
defective. It is, too, no new fact that the state of the 
organs influences the mental processes and certain 
organic diseases have long been thought to be asso- 
ciated with certain types of mental state. The hope- 
fulness of pulmonary tuberculosis, the hypochon- 
driacal depression associated with diseases below the 
diaphragm are familiar examples while other in- 
stances, perhaps not so firmly associated, are the 
anxiety that goes with aortic disease and the dulness 
associated with mitral deficiency and defective aera- 
tion of the blood. Perfectly obvious illustrations are 
the effect of exertion in heart cases with the result- 
'^ ing dyspnoea, the feeling of impending dissolution 
in angina pectoris, the delirium in advanced cases 
of nephritis, and the dementia that is associated with 
destructive cerebral processes. 

From such illustrations we might trace the cor- 
respondences further and further from an obvious 
relationship between the organic defect and the 

245 






246 CHARACTER FORMATION 

mental state. A fairly characteristic type of men- 
tal disorder is known to be associated with Hunting- 
ton's chorea, but I am not aware that there has been 
any serious effort to really explain it. Among the 
disorders of the ductless glands, the endocrinopa- 
thies, one at least, exophthalmic goitre, has been ex- 
haustively studied on the mental side by the surgeons, 
more particularly in relation to the problem of opera- 
tion. No adequate explanation of the mental symp- 
toms has issued as a result, however. Others such 
as acromegaly and cretinism have known character- 
istic mental pictures associated but no effort has yet 
extended beyond trying to describe the symptoms at 
a wholly superficial level. The list might be ex- 
tended but when we find a medical officer on the 
line at Ellis Island picking an emigrant out of line 
and marking him for examination for hernia from 
an indefinable something he was able to detect in his 
facial expression we realise the necessity for some 
general principles in order that we may be able to 
find our way among such confusing facts. 

And finally it remained for Alfred Adler ^ to more 
particularly take up this problem of inferior organs 
and attempt to show their end results as displayed in 
certain character traits. 

The principle underlying the possibility of an in- 
ferior organ being the basic reason for a certain char- 
acter trait lies in the structure of the individual al- 
ready traced. The various functions of the body are 

1 Particularly in his two works "Studie iiber Minderwertigkeit 
von Organen" and "uber den Nervosen Charakter." 



OKGAN INFERIORITY 247 

integrated and re-integrated at progressively higher, 
that is, phylogenetieally more recent levels, from the 
physico-chemical, through the sensory-motor, to the 
psychic. The psyche is the switch-board where each 
organ, each function finds its final representation, 
and this final integration, builded upon the founda- 
tion composed of lower adjustments, compromises, 
integrations, can only be what it is because of the 
underlying material out of which it grows. We 
should expect to find, therefore, that any organ that 
materially departs from the usual in its capacity for 
a quality of function would so modify the integration 
from that point as to cause a corresponding ex- 
pression at the psychological level. This is rather 
a complicated statement, perhaps, but will easily be 
made clear by an example. 

Dr. Barker reports ^ a case of a eunuchoid showing 
signs of hypogenitalism and dyshypophysism. This 
patient had rudimentary sexual organs, he had never 
had sexual feeling nor been able to effect inter- 
course. His general physical make up was sugges- 
tive of the female sex, namely, scanty hair, excess of 
breast tissue, broad pelvis. As a result of the crit- 
icism of his associates of these feminine characteris- 
tics he said that he had made many efforts to do 
'^ manly work'' — and, as a matter of fact, always 
had done hard muscular work. He had been a cow- 
boy, a sailor, a soldier in the Boer war, and was a 
boiler-maker at the time he applied for treatment. 

2 Barker, L. F. : On Abnormalities of the Endocrine Functions 
of the Gonads in the Male. Am. Jour. Med. Sci., Jan., 1915. 



248 CHARACTER FORMATION 

This illustrates my point with perfect clearness. 
A defect at the level of the ductless glands is re- 
flected in the psyche of the individual by his choice of 
work — by his conduct. The inferiority, which had 
the effect of preventing the development of the sex- 
ual characteristics that properly belonged to his sex 
— in general, masculinity — had the effect at the psy- 
chological level of producing conduct calculated to 
compensate for the lack. 

This is the work of compensation for an inferior 
organ as it manifests itself at the psychological 
level. It is the mechanism which Adler has espe- 
cially emphasised in his work. It is well summed 
up by Hall.^ 

^^ Every subnormal (minderwertige) organ is more 
plastic and adaptable than normal organs or func- 
tions. Under the stimulus and protection of the 
central nervous system when it has taken the helm 
they may become not only the more variable in other 
ways but may even become supernormal. What is 
more important, they may be compensated by other 
organs or functions with which they are correlated. 
Moreover superstructures are built which vicariate 
for them, supplementing their deficiencies. Thus re- 
calling, as we saw above, that man is a congeries of 
many organs in various stages of evolution and de- 
cline, the nervous system when it comes to power 
establishes a set of interrelations between those that 
are essential under the impulse of the will to live. 

3 Hall, G. S.: A Synthetic Genetic Study of Fear, Chap. I. 
Am. Jour. Psychol., Ap., 1914. 



ORGAN INFERIORITY 249 

Leaving some to decline and powerfully stimulating 
others to unfold and develop, by keeping them suffi- 
ciently but not too much in exercise, it reinforces 
both atrophy and hypertrophy. In the effort of the 
psyche to foster the important organs and functions 
which it selects for its special care, organic defect 
may be compensated by excess of nervous activity. 
Indeed, most compensations are in the psychic 
though not necessarily in the conscious field. No 
one is perfect, and hence compensation is necessary 
for all. It makes for, if indeed it does not make, 
consciousness itself. Those organs and functions 
which the psyche cannot directly or indirectly con- 
trol decay or become stigmata. Where the brain 
fails to establish a compensatory system we have all 
the hosts of neuroses and psychoses. The existence 
of sub- or abnormal organs or functions always 
brings Janet's sense of incompleteness or insuffi- 
ciency, and this arouses a countervailing impulsion 
to be complete and efficient which those to whom na- 
ture gave lives of balanced harmony do not feel. 
The ideal goal is always to be a whole man or woman 
in mind and body, and this may crop out in the child- 
ish wishes that are sometimes fulfilled in dreams, in 
the ambition of the boy who aches to be a man, and 
in general in the desire to overcome all defects and 
to evolve a full-rounded, mature, powerful and well- 
balanced personality. To illustrate, each bilateral 
organ compensates for defect in the other, one sense 
for another like touch for sight in the blind. Mozart 
had an imperfectly developed ear; Beethoven had 



250 CHARACTER FORMATION 

otosclerosis; Demosthenes stammered and, as if 
mythology had recognised this law, many of the 
ancient gods were defective. Odin had but one eye 
Tyr, one hand ; Vulcan was lame ; Vidar dumb. So 
too, the ugly Socrates made himself a beautiful soul 
A man with a weak digestion becomes a dietetic ex 
pert in battling with fate. Little men walk straight 
tall men stoop. Handsome men are superficial. A 
subnormal eye intensifies the visual psyche. In the 
effort to control enuresis due to renal insufficiency 
over-compensation may predispose to even dreams of 
water. Sex weakness is supplemented by fancies 
of superpotence. Many diseases have compensating 
forms with which they alternate or for which they 
vicariate and the very principle of immunisation is 
involved. Weak parts and functions draw attention 
and are invigorated thereby. Fear of an object ex- 
cites interest in it and this brings the knowledge that 
casts out fear. Very much of the total energy of all 
of us and still more of that of neurotics and psy- 
chotics is spent in developing and using devices of 
concealment (Deckphenomene) of diseases and de- 
fects. Thus often the higher protective and defen- 
sive mechanisms come to do the work of the sub- 
normal function even better than it would do it. 
Conversely compensation has its limits and when it 
breaks down we have anxiety, the most comprehen- 
sive of all fears and the alpha and omega of psy- 
chiatry, the degree of which is inversely as the ability 
to realise the life-wish of self-maximisation. It 
involves a sense of inferiority, inadequacy and great 



ORGAN INFERIORITY 251 

inner tension. The goal may be the humble one of 
self-support, normality, merely absence of actual 
pain, or deformity, but the prospect of failure to 
attain it brings a distress probably equalled by no 
other form of suffering and every fear is a special 
form or degree of it. If the good, strong, healthy, 
higher components can neither improve nor atone for 
the bad, weak, low or morbid elements, anxiety, con- 
scious or unconscious, supervenes, values lose their 
worth, we tend to take refuge from reality in fancies, 
and innate momenta are arrested and we suffer we 
know not what, perhaps fear itself." Let us pursue 
the matter a little further. 

Adler, especially in his work on the inferiority of 
organs,^ takes up in detail the reasons why we may 
consider an organ inferior. For example, one per- 
son gets up an inflammation of the kidneys from a 
certain poison, another person escapes : some people 
have excessive reactions upon very trivial causes, 
such as an albuminuria as a result of constipation. 
All these special susceptibilities can only be ex- 
plained, he thinks, upon the hypothesis of organ 
inferiority. 

The particular interest that the inferior organ has 
in the matter of character traits depends upon the 
fact that it receives its representation in the psyche 
by means of its nervous, ** psychomotor" superstruc- 
ture. It is in this psychomotor superstructure that 

4 Adler, A.: "Studie iiber Minderwertigkeit von Organen," 1907. 
Eng. tr. "Study of Organ Inferiority and Its Psychical Compensa- 
tion," Nerv. and Ment. Dis. Monog. Se. No. 24. 



252 CHARACTER FORMATION 

compensation must take place if the individual is to 
be able to adequately adjust to his organ inferiority. 

The difficulty with these inferior organs is that 
they do not stand well the increased duties put upon 
them by the increasing cultural demands of develop- 
ment but lag behind and by preference engage in 
pleasure seeking. This is well seen in the functions 
of emptying the bladder and rectum. These func- 
tions, as the child grows older, have to be more and 
more repressed in compliance with the cultural 
demands. But some persons never learn to accom- 
modate themselves at all well to these demands and 
in any case their repressions break down easily 
under any degree of unusual stress of requirements. 
In other words, they have only succeeded with great 
effort because of this fundamental defect and can 
only hold themselves poised under favourable con- 
ditions, but as soon as anything extra is demanded 
they drop at once to a lower cultural level with re- 
spect to the function of the particular inferior organ. 
For example, Adler, speaking of these conditions in 
terms of heightened reflex manifestations, mentions 
those persons, who, under any stress stammer, vomit, 
laugh, cry, scratch themselves, tear their hair, start, 
blink or have violent attacks of spasmodic sneezing 
upon seeing a bright light, squint when looking at 
anything close at hand, etc. 

As an example of his way of looking at specific 

cases I will cite his case of Ladislaus F eight 

years of age. He was injured in August, 1905, by 
approaching too close to a schoolmate who was 



ORGAN INFERIORITY 253 

brandishing a pen. The pen pierced the outer upper 
quadrant of the left eye ball. It pierced the con- 
junctiva and entered the sclera. The wound healed 
uneventfully. In October of the same year he again 
presented himself with a coal splinter imbedded in 
the cornea of the left eye, which had been blown 
there by a gust of wind. This was extracted and the 
wound healed. In January, 1906, he suffered an- 
other wound of the left eye caused, as was the first, 
by a pen in the hands of a schoolmate. The wound 
was about one centimetre beneath and inside of the 
other wound. This also healed leaving an ink 
stained scar. 

The history of this case showed: the maternal 
grandfather suffered from diabetic iritis and w^as 
for a long time under the care of an ophthalmologist. 
The mother had a convergent strabismus as did also 
the patient's younger brother, and both had hyper- 
metropia and diminished acuteness of vision which 
could not be accurately measured because of the 
inattention and defective intelligence of the boy. A 
maternal uncle was a sufferer from recurrent attacks 
of an eczematous conjunctivitis and also had a con- 
vergent strabismus. The patient had normal visual 
acuteness with slight hypermetropia but showed a 
lack of conjunctival reflexes in both eyes. 

These facts are presented to show that the boy 
suffered an inferiority of the eye which had a strong 
hereditary basis, manifesting itself particularly in 
the deficiency of the conjunctival reflexes and the 
poor protection of the eyes by the boy, which seem 



254 CHARACTER FORMATION 

to be related, in some not wholly explained way, to 
the deficient reflex action. 

Adler emphasises the capacity which the psyche 
has for correcting such faults as this. The inferior 
organ is the object of a particular interest which 
seeks to protect it and so the boy, if he could be 
made aware of this inferiority, could learn by experi- 
ence to better protect his defective organs. 

The childish faults such as constipation, vomiting, 
blinking, squinting, stuttering, sucking the thumb, 
lack of control of bowels and bladder require control, 
that is, repression of this functioning as a source of 
organic sensory pleasure as the child grows older, 
in response to cultural demands. Thus ^^ limitation 
of organic sensory . pleasure for the benefit of cul- 
tural progress becomes the test of organic normal- 
ity." The inferior organ remains with increased 
sensitivity to sensory pleasure which is because it 
cannot follow the safe path of the cultural require- 
ments. It is, however, the cause of all organic 
activity while the cultural requirements themselves 
draw their strength from repressed sensory pleasure. 

We see here, of course, an expression of the con- 
flict in terms of organ inferiority. There could be 
no conflict if all the elements were equal. It is 
exceedingly interesting to note in this connection a 
recent paper by Bates ^ on curing errors of refrac- 
tion without glasses by central fixation. The author 

5 Bates, W. H.: The Cure of Defective Eyesight by Treatment 
Without Glasses or The Radical Cure of Errors of Refraction by 
Means of Central Fixation. N. Y. Med. Jour., May 8, 1915. 



ORGAN INFERIORITY 255 

concludes, among other things, that: ^^The cause of 
all errors of refraction is a strain to see. The cure 
is accomplished by relaxation. Relaxation is se- 
cured by central fixation. ^ ' 

To translate this into terms of libido we should 
say that defective vision was a defective use of eye 
libido ; and that it was necessary to bring the nature 
of the defect into consciousness in order that the 
psyche might attend to it and thereby bring about a 
more efficient use of the libido. Surely it is a far 
cry from ophthalmology, approaching an exact 
science, that is relatively as the medical sciences go, 
based upon the mathematical measurement of sur- 
face curvatures to the treatment of the errors of 
refraction, so to speak, psychotherapeutically. 

Cannon has demonstrated^ that under the influ- 
ence of fear or anger a minute portion of adrenalin 
is thrown into the blood current from the suprarenal 
glands. The effects of this adrenalin are to con- 
tract the superficial blood vessels, increase the 
coagulability of the blood, decrease the fatiguibility 
of the muscles, dilate the bronchioles, and throw into 
the circulation a considerable quantity of dextrose. 

The meaning of these changes becomes clear when 
the emotions which cause them are correlated with 
the characteristic conduct belonging to them. Thus 
fear and anger are correlated with that conduct 
which we call flight and fight. 

The animal that has to run or fight for its life 

6 Cannon, W. B.: "Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and 
Rage." N. Y., D. Appleton & Co., 1915. 



256 CHARACTER FORMATION 

would obviously be tremendously benefited by hav- 
ing the superficial capillaries contracted, the supply 
of energy in the blood current being thus deflected 
to the muscles and central nervous system; the 
fatiguibility of the muscles lessened; the coagu- 
lability of the blood increased so that bleeding from 
wounds that were received might be limited ; muscle 
food discharged into the blood which could still 
further help to sustain the animal in its time of 
stress; and finally, breathing made easier by the 
dilatation of the bronchioles. 

In this situation we see a perfectly clear and under- 
standable relation between certain physiological 
reactions on the one hand and certain psychological 
reactions on the other. In the last analysis why 
should not every physiological reaction have its 
psychological co-ordinate? In the meantime, how- 
ever, we see here a picture in which the high light 
illumines a feature in the foreground of a certain 
disease. The disease is diabetes mellitus and the 
common element is glycosuria or hyperglycemia, an 
increased sugar content of the blood. Why might 
we not expect to find by an analysis of the psyche 
a psychological correlation just as meaningful as 
that found by Cannon? Here are just a few con- 
siderations which are of interest in connection with 
this suggestion. 

It has long been believed that certain cases of 
diabetes were of nervous origin and the psychic 
factor has been emphasised in many of them. The 
connection between such psychic states as influence 



ORGAN INFERIORITY 257 

the elimination of sugar and hyperexcitability of 
certain portions of the sympathetic system and the 
action of adrenalin has been recognised and has 
been discussed by Falta ^ in his recent work, who 
speaks of a nervous or adrenilinogenic type. 

It is exceedingly interesting to speculate along 
these lines as to what form the psychic expression 
would take but it would seem that it must be the 
result of a repression of anger or fear, a state 
brought about as a result of preparing the body for 
fight or flight, that is for action, and no action takes 
place. It will be recalled that the adrenals and the 
liver are included in Crile's kinetic system.^ 

In turning to Osier's^ ^^ Practice of Medicine," a 
reading of the section on etiology suggests still 
further correlations. It is much more common in 
Europe than in America. Is not this what might be 
expected! The older civilisation means greater re- 
pression particularly, too, because of greater con- 
gestion of the population and so keener competition. 
For similar reasons it is much less frequent in the 
coloured race than in the white race. One who is 
familiar with the coloured race knows that repression 
is not one of its prominent characteristics. And 
finally it seems to be generally conceded that it is 
especially prevalent in the Semitic race. Here cer- 

7 Falta, W.: "The Ductless Glandular Diseases." Philadelphia, 
P. Blackiston's Son & Co., 1915. 

sCrile, G. W.: "The Origin and Nature of the Emotions." 
Philadelphia, W. B. Saunders Co., 1915. 

9 Osier, W. : "The Principles and Practice of Medicine." 3rd 
Ed. D. Appleton & Co., New York, 1899. 



258 CHARACTER FORMATION 

tainly no argument is needed to demonstrate the 
larger factor tliat repression may well play in a race 
wliich, in Europe particularly, has continuously been 
the object of prejudice and so suppressed in all 
manner of ways for centuries. 

Of course I do not offer these considerations as 
anything more than suggestions. The clinical pic- 
ture which we know as diabetes mellitus is probably 
a very complex one into which many factors may 
enter. I merely suggest a point of view for one 
aspect of the problem. 

When a man loses an arm or leg, or is deprived 
by accident or disease of a special sense, sight or 
hearing, it is perfectly obvious that he has to make 
certain concessions to his defect and effect certain 
compromises in order to get along at his best. The 
effect upon the psyche is not always so obvious but 
it must be evident that it must take place if a little 

/A thought is given to the matter from this point of 
view. The general suspicions and paranoid tend- 
ency of partially deaf persons is well known while 
in other defects it might be said, in general, that to 
the extent that the deprivation has caused a change 
from the previous mode of lif6 it has necessarily 
also caused a correlative change in the way of 

V thinking. 

The thesis here laid down, however, is much more 
all-embracing. It sees the will to power, as a great 
creative energy, streaming through the body ; creat- 
ing and making to grow its several organs each one 
of which would appropriate as much of the energy 



ORGAN INFERIORITY 259 

as within its power lay and so tend to dominate the 
other organs. In the well-balanced, and as we say, 
the normal individual this energy is split up into 
innumerable tendencies, each tendency represented 
by some organ or part of an organ, and each accu- 
rately opposed and restrained by counter-tendencies 
until finally the resulting organism is the final 
product of the interplay of all these opposed and 
balanced tendencies forced into a final pattern which 
shall best serve the organism as a whole. 

The purpose and meaning of the organism as a 
whole, its tendency, nowhere receives expression in 
the human individual, until the final integration in 
the psyche. It is my contention that if at any point 
along this path an inferior organ is unable to do its 
share of the work then the concessions which have 
to be made to this defect and the compromises that 
have to be effected as a result of it must ultimately 
find their expression at the psychological level. In 
other words, when an individual suffers from an 
organic defect, that he is thereby hampered in his 
conduct along those lines that require the full and 
complete functioning of that particular organ, and 
that therefore his whole mental attitude must be 
twisted to overcome and get around the defect in 
his organic structure, and in order to bring things 
to pass which he desires, he has to a certain extent 
to distort his conduct because of tlie barrier which 
this defective organ continuously offers. 

This way of looking at the facts, I think, extremely 
valuable because it seems to me the common basis 



260 CHARACTEK FORMATION 

on whicli the organicists and tlie functionalists can 
come together. For example: it was all very well 
a generation ago when there was no such thing as 
a histology of the cerebral cortex in the modern 
sense and when, with the exception of paresis, mental 
diseases had no cerebral pathology, to take the 
ground that structure and function had to comport 
to a parallelistic psychology, that brain physiology 
and psychology represented two separate scientific 
disciplines and that each had to keep within its own 
bounds. But now that has all changed and particu- 
larly with the development of our knowledge of the 
vegetative nervous system and the ductless glands 
and as a result of such work as that of Cannon we 
see the two erstwhile widely separated disciplines 
merging one into the other. 

This new way of looking at the facts is particu- 
larly important for the evaluation of certain recent 
results. Bolton ^^ in his work on mental pathology 
claims that while syphilis is a necessary antecedent 
to dementia paralytica, still that the patients who 
suffer from this form of mental disease would, if 
they had not acquired syphilis, have suffered from 
some one of the types of chronic neuronic dementia. 
He bases his assertion largely upon evidence of a 
high percentage of heredity of mental disease, and 
of parental and family degeneracy which he has 
obtained in cases of dementia paralytica, and he also 
thinks that he has shown the existence of cerebral 

10 Bolton, J. S.: "The Brain in Health and Disease." London, 
1914. 



ORGAN INFERIOEITY 261 

under-development in certain types of this form of 
mental disease. 

The nature of the movement in this direction, the 
hitching up of organ defects and the nature of patho- 
logical reaction types, is very well seen in the recent 
work of Obersteiner ^^ on the Importance of Endog- 
enous Factors for the Pathogenesis of Nervous 
Diseases. He has shown the presence of organ de- 
fects in a number of diseases. For example in 
tabes (locomotor ataxia) accurate measurements 
have demonstrated the persistence in the cord of 
certain infantile characteristics. Organ defects have 
also been demonstrated in multiple sclerosis, syrin- 
gomyelia, juvenile paresis, epilepsy, dementia prse- 
cox, hereditary ataxia, amaurotic idiocy, pseudo- 
sclerosis, Wilson's disease, and even in brain tumor. 

It has always been remarked that so few syphilitics 
develop paresis. Perhaps here is the key to the 
explanation. In fact Obersteiner thinks that the 
findings in tabes and juvenile paresis, as well as 
clinical experience, lead to the suspicion of the exist- 
ence of a specific constitution for adult paresis which 
may perhaps be ultimately capable of histological 
demonstration. 

One is reminded in this connection of the work of 
Southard ^^ who described certain anomalies in 

11 Obersteiner, H. : Die Bedeutung des Endogenen Factors f iir die 
Pathogenese der Nervenkrankheiten. 'Neurol. Centralhl., Apr., 1915. 
Abstracted by Kirby in the State Hospitals Bulletin. August, 1915. 

12 Southard, E. E.: A Study of the Dementia Praecox Group in 
the Light of Certain Cases showing Anomalies or Scleroses in Par- 
ticular Brain Regions. Am. Jour. Insanity, July, 1910. 



262 CHARACTER FORMATION 

praecox brains whicli miglit easily be interpreted as 
ageneses — defects of development. 

This whole problem is receiving emphasis from 
many directions. Particularly with reference to the 
connection of syphilis with the neuroses and psy- 
choses. The evidence on this point has recently 
been briefly reviewed by Bazeley and Anderson.^^ 
They conclude that the evidence is increasing for 
regarding the endogenous psychoses and psychoneu- 
roses to be the last offshoots of a syphilitic heredity. 
They cite Mott 's work which shows the tendency that 
would exist for dementia praecox stock to die out 
because of its earlier appearance in successive gen- 
erations but inasmuch as the disease appears to be 
increasing there must be some extraneous factor at 
work which he suggests is syphilis. They also cite 
Freud's statement that in more than one-half of his 
severe cases of hysteria, compulsion neurosis, etc., 
he had succeeded in demonstrating that the father 
had gone through an attack of syphilis before mar- 
riage and had either suffered from tabes or paresis 
or there was a general history of syphilis. He added 
that the children who developed and became neurotic 
showed absolutely no signs of hereditary syphilis. 

All this is interesting in connection with the theory 
of allergie as applied to the interpretation of the 
nature of syphilitic lesions by Mcintosh and Fildes.^* 

13 Bazeley, J. H., and Anderson, H. M.: Mental Features of 
Congenital Syphilitics. Boston Med. and Surg. Jour., Dec. 23, 
1915. 

14 Mcintosh, J., and Fildes, P.: A Comparison of the Lesions 



ORGAN INFERIOEITY 263 

The whole theory of immunity might also be con- 
sidered from this standpoint for constitutional fac- 
tors need not be altogether morphological but bio- 
chemical as Obersteiner points out.^^ Instances in 
point are the various types of reaction to poisons 
such as alcohol and the existence of personal and 
family idiosyncrasies for certain foods for example. 
The special susceptibility of one organ rather than 
another for some form of noxa, would, from the 
point of view of Adler, be an expression of its 
inferiority. 

From the point of view of physiology the cortex 
may be considered as a more complex form of nerv- 
ous arrangement in which still are maintained, how- 
ever, the fundamental principles of reflex action; 
namely, incoming stimulus, central rearrangement, 
and outgoing response. If this is true then con- 
duct, which has this physical substratum, must be 
fashioned along the same lines. The only difference 
between the manifestations of conduct and the spinal 
reflex being that of complexity. The way in which 
simple reflexes may be built up in complex relations 
which have lost their resemblance to the simple pat- 
tern on which they were constructed has been shown 
by the Eussian physiologist Pawlow in what he has 
called conditioned reflexes. 

Pawlow 's experiments were carried out on the 
function of the secretion of saliva in dogs. Here is 

of Syphilis and "Parasyphilis," together with evidence in favour of 
the identity of these two conditions. Brain, Sept., 1914. 
15 Loc. cit. 



264 CHAKACTER FORMATION 

the type of experiment. When a dog is shown food 
there is immediately a marked secretion of saliva. 
Now the situation was somewhat complicated by 
associating another stimulus with the showing of 
the food, for example, the ringing of a bell so that 
each time food was shown the bell was rung and the 
secretion of saliva followed. ^ This presentation of 
these associated stimuli was continued for some- 
time, and then it was found that the ringing of the 
bell alone, without the presentation of the food at all, 
was sufficient to evoke the secretion. This is what 
he called a conditioned reflex. From this experi- 
ment it is seen how various elements can be combined 
into a system by the mere fact of having been asso- 
ciated together and how the results of such a system 
may be activity which, on the one hand might appear 
to have no cause at all, as if the secretion was noted 
but the relation of the sound of the bell was not 
understood, or on the other hand conduct appears 
which seems entirely voluntary and intelligent, as 
for example the going to dinner when the bell rings. 
If the principle of the conditioned reflex is pursued 
it is evident that as the situation becomes more and 
more complicated by additional elements and by 
cross associations the results are more and more im- 
possible of prediction. Conduct therefore tends 
toward the unpredictable and in fact we are accus- 
tomed to think of that conduct which is the least 
predictable as the most voluntary. As already set 
forth, however, modern psychology is deterministic 
and therefore can only regard such an attitude 



ORGAN INFERIORITY 265 

towards conduct as but another attempt to regain 
our lost omnipotence. 

From this point of view, however, we again get 
light upon the correlation of the organic and func- 
tional viewpoints. The structure of the cortex is 
the organic substratum upon which are based these 
reactions. Cortical organ inferiority therefore is 
perhaps at the basis of certain defects of conduct. 
We feel sure that it is in the graver defects of idiots 
and imbeciles. The question is whether the concept 
is valuable for the higher types of defect. 

The concept is a valuable one if it is not over- 
worked. So long as we think only of the struggle 
for power r.mong the partial libido trends reaching 
temporary solutions as a result of successes, failures, 
and compromises which results receive a final sym- 
bolic representation in the psyche the concept is 
valuable. But so soon as we jump at the conclusion 
that any failure to adjust is dependent upon an organ 
defect which is inherent and therefore unchangeable 
the reason for a therapeutic attack upon the problem 
is at once destroyed. In the face of what we actually 
know about therapeutic possibilities not only in the 
field of mental medicine but in general medicine such 
an attitude is unwarranted. We know, for example, 
that an accumulation of pus if left to itself may 
burrow into some vital part and cause death or into 
some obscure and complex region where it may result 
in a chronic poisoning of the patient with serious 
invalidism or injury of important structures and 
permanent crippling. A simple incision by the 



266 CHARACTER FORMATION 

surgeon may obviate all this danger, permit the pus 
a safe outlet and so direct the forces of repair into 
channels that lead to a prompt and real recovery. 

Suppose that with one of Pawlow's dogs it was 
found that the ringing of the bell had become asso- 
ciated with a motor response that carried the dog 
in the direction from which the sound came and that 
a ringing bell in a nearby mill might easily lead it 
to a place of danger and possible death. It would 
be comparatively easy to re-educate the dog by de- 
stroying that association and if necessary building 
up a new one. 

Uncontrolled and left to chance the symbolic rep- 
resentations may easily be combined in patterns that 
are far from desirable and far from the most effec- 
tive ones that might have been utilised. Under 
guidance and by intelligent education and re-educa- 
tion, however, their capacity for harm may easily 
be lessened as the energy bound up in the symbols 
(Chapter V) is made available for more constructive 
ends. 

Aside, however, from the therapeutic attack upon 
actual situations of mal-adjustment this concept is 
of value in getting at the inner meaning of symptoms 
bodily as well as mental. Under its guidance we are 
inquiring for the first time into the meaning of some 
diseases from the point of view of the strivings of 
the individual as a biological unit. Can we, for 
example, express certain diseases in terms of partial 
libido strivings in the sense set forth in Chapter 
1X1 Can a carcinoma of the stomach be understood 



ORGAN INFERIOEITY 267 

in terms of nutritional libido! A rectal tabetic 
crisis in terms of anal erotic? a pulmonary tubercu- 
losis in terms of respiratory libido? A tremor in 
terms of muscle libido! And so on throughout the 
whole category. Such questions as these can hardly 
be more than asked at this time. If we pick up an 
average book on the practice of medicine we find 
almost nothing regarding the characteristics of the 
psyche in the different diseases except those that 
are obviously of nervous origin. We find the pa- 
thology and physical signs stressed in the description 
but the psyche is largely left out of account. Of 
course in a disease like exophthalmic goitre the 
mental state is generally described in some detail, 
although superficially, but in as important and wide- 
spread a disease as pulmonary tuberculosis the men- 
tal state, is, in general, not even referred to. 

In approaching this problem it is important to get 
rid of a bugaboo quite as sterilising in its effects as 
the theory of psycho-physical parallelism — ^the com- 
plete separation of mind and body, as if they were 
two absolutely different sets of phenomena unrelated 
in any way whatever (see Chapter V). This bug- 
aboo is the belief that we must not use terms, con- 
cepts that belong to one scientific discipline to 
explain phenomena in another discipline. In general 
I have already dealt with this question in Chapter V 
where I have briefly discussed reasoning by analogy 
and there shown that reasoning by analogy is not 
only a legitimate form of reasoning but it is the 
basis of all reasoning. To carry this bugaboo to its 



268 CHAKACTER FORMATION 

logical conclusion would mean to split phenomena 
up into an infinite number of compartments, ulti- 
mately as many as there are phenomena, which 
would be as mutually exclusive as mind and body are 
often thought to be and would thus render progress 
impossible. Without comparison and classification 
we would indeed be in a sorry plight and analogy is 
at the basis of both. 

Aside from this argument the use of terms which 
have meaning, in the psychological sense, as applied 
to physiological reactions, for instance, is peculiarly 
justified in that such terms define the tendencies of 
the reactions so far as they have reference to the 
entire individual — the ends of the individual as such. 
For instance, is it not possible to think of pulmonary 
tuberculosis in terms of partial libido strivings "F In 
this case of the strivings of the respiratory libido. 
From the point of view of the strivings of the indi- 
vidual — the answer to the question. Where is the 
individual trying to go! May not this disease rep- 
resent an inability of the individual to use his res- 
piratory libido to serve these larger ends 1 In other 
words, so far as his respiratory libido goes he is 
unable to get adequate expression through it; this 
particular channel of expression is obstructed. In 
the striving for power the respiratory libido has, so 
to speak, been selfish, wrapt up in its own selfish 
ends, and has not been able to serve the individual 
as a whole. It is again the old story of self-preserva- 
tion versus race preservation or in this case the 
preservation of the community ; that is, the commun- 



OEGAN INFEEIORITY 269 

ity of partial libido trends which comprise the in- 
dividual whose salvation depends upon each tend- 
ency being willing to sacrifice some of its self-seek- 
ing for the good of the group. 

The same way of thinking may be applied to other 
diseases — gastric carcinoma, nephritis, arterio-scle- 
rosis, etc. Is cerebral arterio-sclerosis, for instance, 
a setting of the tissues which makes further develop- 
ment impossible, or is it a tissue response to stop- 
page of development, a crystallisation of the ways 
of thinking! 

These are fascinating ways of looking at the 
problems and at least emphasise the necessity for 
a more thorough study of the psyche in so-called 
organic diseases for the purpose, at least, of dis- 
covering how these various organic defects receive 
their symbolic representation at that level. 

There then remains, of course, the problem of 
social psychology which must work all the material 
over again at the still higher, social level. 



CHAPTEE XII 
THE RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 

We have seen (Chapter IV) that the broadest 
statement of the conflict is that of the theorem of 
Le Chatelier which states in general, that a system 
tends to change so as to minimise an external dis- 
turbance, and I have given many illustrations of 
this law. In this chapter it is not my intention to 
discuss the conflict from the point of view of thera- 
peutics but only from the point of view of the 
mechanisms and their meanings which enter into its 
resolution. 

In Chapters II and IV I have tried to show, not 
only how conflict was at the basis of life, but how 
consciousness itself was an expression of conflict and 
how integration and adjustment were effected by the 
solution of conflicts, which solutions were then made 
the basis for new conflicts and new solutions in the 
process of integrations and adjustments at a higher 
level. And in Chapter V I showed how, at the psy- 
chological level, the symbol was utilised as the energy 
carrier from one level to the next higher level in 
this process. I wish now to inquire somewhat more 
in detail into the mechanisms involved. 

In approaching this problem the first thing that 

270 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 271 

must be clearly realised is that, speaking in terms of 
the libido, the libido has only two pathways open 
for it and these pathways lead in diametrically oppo- 
site directions. One leads forward and upward, it 
is the pathway of constructive tendencies ; the other 
leads backward and downward, it is the pathway of 
destructive tendencies. The former leads to fulfil- 
ment, life, immortality ; the latter to dissatisfaction, 
failure, death. 

These directions are to be understood only as 
tendencies, the goal of immortality leads by the way 
of development, progress, evolution and is expressed 
by the conservation of personal life by means of 
health and the prolongation of personal life in chil- 
dren and of personal influence as expressed in a 
material way through the passing on of our personal 
qualities by way of the germ plasm or our spiritual 
tendencies by way of our works in our influence upon 
those about us, upon our own times, and upon the 
future by the record of our achievements that sur- 
vive our individual existence. The death goal is by 
the way of the path of regression, the retracing of 
the path by which we have come, and leads to failure 
in the conservation of our individual existence, ill- 
ness, invalidism (physical and mental) and to failure 
to hand on our influence either by way of the germ 
plasm or spiritually as a result of our works. These 
are the two pathways represented on the one hand 
by the drag back of our unconscious instinctive tend- 
encies and on the other by those tendencies sub- 
limated and applied to constructive conscious ends. 



272 CHARACTER FORMATION 

the ambivalent goals of which are death and life 
motived respectively by fear and desire. 

This is the conflict, the path of opposites, along 
which somewhere, specific tendencies clash and cause 
that splitting of the psyche, so clearly seen in psy- 
chotics, which divides the energies of the individual 
and leaves him torn and broken upon the rocks of 
indecision, with his consciousness raised to an acute- 
ness which is painful (fear, anxiety) in its terrific 
efforts to effect an adjustment. In this sense con- 
sciousness is remedial in the sense of Hall ^ who says : 
^'In a large and pregnant sense consciousness itself 
is compensation, and is the psychic aspect of a deeper 
biologic law. In geniuses and in neurotics, it comes 
more to the surface. Berger's story of a born 
criminal who became a judge and was noted for his 
Draconian severity but who lapsed to crime and 
committed suicide, leaving a confessional autobiog- 
raphy, is typical of one aspect of it. The work of 
great artists is often a complement of their lives, 
expressing in most ideal form what they most lack. 
If the heart, digestive processes, lungs, muscles, are 
weak or go wrong, they come into consciousness, and 
curative agencies are initiated. Pain is a cry of the 
lower, older parts and functions of our organism to 
the higher nervous system for help. Paranoiacs 
tending to delusions of greatness and hyper-self -feel- 
ing are often over-polite to others. The sense of de- 
fect prompts training and education to cure and also 

Ulall, G. S.: A Synthetic Genetic Study of Fear. Chap. I. 
Am. Jour. Psych. Ap., 1914. All italics mine. 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 273 

countless devices to hide them. Culture corrects the 
errors of instinct and dress hides deformities. Thus 
nurture supplements nature, and environment has 
to rectify heredity. These processes constitute con- 
sciousness, which is always more or less remedial. 
Taine conceived it as a mutual repression of oppo- 
site impulses and tendencies, any of which if not 
checked would develop into insane intensity, and he 
deemed the neuroses as only the most intense form 
of it. Where these integrating and compensating 
processes have more than they can do and break 
down, whether from strain of outer circumstances 
or because they find inner resistances too great, so 
that the power to rectify and adjust is exhausted, 
abatement of the life impulse is felt, and this sense 
of abatement is anxiety, diffuse or acute. It is the 
bi-polar opposite of the pleroma of life abounding, 
which all crave. From this point of view, then, 
consciousness itself is incipient anxiety. . . . The 
summum genus of fear thus is a sense of the inability 
to cope with life, a dread of being vanquished and 
becoming not victors in its battle, a sense of limita- 
tion and of inferiority in our power to achieve the 
fullest success and happiness, a feeling that our 
hereditary momentum was originally insufficient or 
is in danger of being reduced. We would do, be, 
get all that is possible for man's estate, attain the 
fullest macrobiotic development, and fear and shock 
are intimations that we fall short, are less than we 
might, could or should be. This excelsior impulsion 
encounters obstacles and suffers arrest, and desire. 



274 CHARACTER FORMATION 

ambition, possibilities, may fail. Hence pain and 
its anticipation, fear, and their diaphrenic opposites, 
pleasure and hope, play a great role in the evolution 
of affective life, not without analogies to that as- 
signed to nothing and being in the Hegelian logic. 
The thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis of the one are 
the basis of an affective, and those of the other of a 
rational, dialetic system. Hope and fear have had 
very much to do in shaping not only habits, instincts 
and probably structure itself, but in making mental 
and nervous disease or health. Indeed from the 
genetic standpoint they are the creators of conscious- 
ness itself, from its lowest to its highest form." 

It follows from all this that the symbolisation of 
the conflict, either in the dream or in the symptoms 
of the neurosis or psychosis, will contain elements 
representative of both factors, and also that no solu- 
tion of the conflict can come about except by the 
satisfaction of both of these diametrically opposed 
tendencies. It follows, too, that no conflict can be 
solved at the level of the conflict. That is, two 
mutually opposed tendencies can never unite their 
forces except at a higher level, in an all inclusive 
synthesis which lifts the whole situation to a level 
above that upon which the conflict arose. The 
formula is Hegelian and would read something like 
this thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis. To illustrate: 

Let us go back to the dream of the young man 
(Chapter VI) who dreamt that he stood beside a 
casket in which lay his grandfather's body and that 
while he stood there the body moved; it seemed to 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 275 

be ill at ease. My interpretation of that dream was 
that the grandfather represented the young man's 
ideal and that his ideal was dead but it did not rest 
comfortably in death, it was uneasy and would be 
up and doing. The dream might be interpreted as 
a regressive wish-fulfilling structure by way of the 
** reversed parentage" phantasy (Chapter VII). 
But a moment's consideration shows this can not be 
all. The grandfather is uneasy, he does not rest in 
death. If then we will assume that the body of the 
grandfather represents the dreamer we see the ambi- 
valent tendencies both expressed. The desire to 
regress, to follow the path of idleness, of the uncon- 
scious longings that lead to death through identifica- 
tion with the grandfather (long since dead) based 
upon an infantile incestuous phantasy — identifica- 
tion with the grandfather is only a distortion cloaking 
a desire to be in place of the father — is represented 
by the dead body. But then the body stirs and is un- 
easy. This is the opposite tendency, the desire to be 
on the road of progress, to be active and constructive. 
Later on this young man was very much better 
and happier as a result of going into business and 
being quite successful. His grandfather had been 
a successful man so he reaches a solution of his 
conflict by success in business thus identifying him- 
self with his grandfather but not having to die, or 
at least to keep upon the road that leads to death, 
in order to do so. So we see the two opposed tend- 
encies, the desire to identify himself with the 
grandfather (death) and the desire for constructive 



276 CHARACTEK FORMATION 

living (life) come to expression in the final syn- 
thesis, the solution of the conflict, a successful busi- 
ness career like the grandfather. 

Leaving this aspect of the problem for the present, 
to return to it later, I want to take up at this point 
certain tendencies of the different movements in the 
psychoanalytic field to further illustrate ways of 
looking at the problem of the conflict. 

The original method by which the conflict was 
dealt with therapeutically, and the still most impor- 
tant feature of its therapeutic handling, was to get 
the unconscious factor into consciousness. So long 
as the unconscious factor remains unconscious the 
conflict continues with no power to bring matters to 
a satisfactory conclusion. The patient, the host of 
the conflict, is in a position similar to a soldier in 
the trenches being shot at by a sharp-shooter using 
smokeless powder. He is conscious of the impact 
of the bullets about him and of his danger but he 
doesn't know what to do about it, he doesn't know 
which way to turn, he is as apt to move in the wrong 
as in the right direction. Just so soon as he can 
learn the location of the sharp-shooter it will be a 
relatively simple matter to move around a bend in 
the trench and get out of range but until he learns 
this he is helpless. And so the first effort is to help 
the patient learn this, to help him get the unconscious 
factor into consciousness. 

The way in which the scheme works in bringing 
about a resolution of the conflict is well illustrated 
in the following story: A group of college profes- 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 277 

sors have just entered the physical laboratory and 
are engaged in conversation when one of them notices 
that a bowl standing on a table by the window, half 
exposed to the sunlight and half in shadow, is warm 
on the side in shadow while the side in the sunlight 
is cooL He calls the attention of his confreres to 
this phenomenon whereupon a wordy discussion im- 
mediately ensues which waxes warmer and warmer 
as each participant insists upon being heard and 
expressing his explanation. Meanwhile the janitor, 
who has been standing by, trying to get an opportun- 
ity to speak, finally sees his chance and injects into 
the discussion the statement that just before they en- 
tered the room he had turned the bowl about. The 
effect is magical. The loud words, the antagonisms, 
all disappear. The phenomenon has been explained, 
there is no longer any occasion for a conflict. 

The Adlerian point of view does not tend to ex- 
planation so simple. His concept of organ inferior- 
ity stresses compensation. The goal of all our 
striving is for complete masculinity and our striving 
is determined in its direction by the particular organ 
inferiority from which we may happen to suffer and 
which gives us a sense of inferiority. It is this 
feeling of inferiority which we are constantly trying 
to overcome and it can only be overcome by succeed- 
ing in compensating for the organ inferiority which 
is at its basis. Depending therefore on the particu- 
lar nature of the inferiority is the resulting effort 
at compensation and therein lies the origin of char- 
acter traits. 



278 CHARACTER FORMATION 

The neurosis, from the Adlerian viewpoint, de- 
pends upon a feeling of inferiority in the face of 
reality, which cannot be overcome, so the individual 
runs away from reality, runs to cover, takes a flight 
into a neurosis or psychosis perhaps, in response to 
his Sicherungstendenz, his effort to secure safety. 

This can be seen to be just aiiother way of express- 
ing the desire to recover the lost omnipotence except 
that it is based upon an organ inferiority concept. 
On the contrary the will to power is expressed by 
the Aggressionstrieb, the tendency to overcome. 

What shall we say of this organ inferiority as the 
basis of the conflict 1 Can it be true that all growth, 
all development comes from the expenditure of effort 
in trying to overcome some defect? In this sense 
does all strength have its origin in weakness ? And 
if so should we not rather welcome suffering because 
only through trials that tax us to our limit can the 
full of our powers come to fruition. As Schopen- 
hauer expresses it ; ^ 

**He who through such considerations has realised 
how necessary to our salvation, sorrow and suffer- 
ing mostly are; he will recognise that we should 
envy others not so much on account of their happi- 
ness as of their unhappiness.'' 

Of course in a certain sense our strength does 
come from our weaknesses, that is by overcoming 
our weaknesses. Consciousness itself we have seen 
is an expression of conflict and if the conflict issues 

2 Schopenhauer, A. : "Essays." Contributions to the Doctrine of 
the Affirmation and Negation of the Will-to-Live. 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 279 

in success, that is if tlie energy which is split and 
flowing in two directions can be freed in a higher 
synthesis for constructive ends it is only as the 
result of overcoming, supplanting by sublimation of 
those restraining, back-dragging lower instincts rep- 
resented by the unconscious factor of the conflict. 

If as Aristotle says,^ ^'to be happy means to be 
self-sufficienf then the possibility of attaining such 
an end can only mean, in terms of the psychological 
conflict, to be capable of sublimation. The capacity 
for sublimation may well depend, in the sense of 
Adler, in the last analysis, upon the degree of organ 
inferiority which is at the basis of the conflict. Thus 
a man whose organs are to all intents and purposes 
normal, will be free, while the man with marked 
organ inferiority will be crippled in proportion to 
that inferiority, the organ defect, however, serving 
to call forth his most strenuous efforts in his at- 
tempts to overcome it and therefore serving to bring 
out the best that is in him. 

So much for the illustration of the fact that the 
symbolisation of the conflict must contain elements 
representative of both factors. From this necessity 
there arises the bi-polarity of symbols, that is, the 
representation of both elements of the conflict by the 
same symbol. 

In the dream of the young man standing by the 
casket containing his grandfather: the body of the 
grandfather represents death, that is the uncon- 
scious factor in the conflict that drags back and 

3 Cited by Schopenhauer: "The Wisdom of Life." 



/ 



280 CHAKACTER FORMATION 

destroys efficiency; but the grandfather also repre- 
sents life for he stirs and this is the conscious ele- 
ment of the conflict that would force the young man 
along the path of usefulness. As pointed out in the 
chapter on symbolism, it is because of this capacity 
the symbol has to fit the situation in which it is 
needed that it is the energy bearer par excellence. 
If the same symbol can be used to express both ambi- 
valent terms of the conflict then it would seem that 
the energy was more available for either. Of course 
this makes the situation more dangerous but cor- 
respondingly it also fills it with greater hope. 

The enormous amount of energy which the symbol 
carries, and which is therefore available for sub- 
limation — resolution of the conflict — is also seen in 
the fact that the symbol always stands for the 
dreamer himself, or more accurately, that part of 
the dreamer which the symbol brings forward for 
review. So, the body of the grandfather, in the 
dream in question, is the dreamer, or more accu- 
rately, that portion of the dreamer which it, as a. 
symbol, represents. The grandfather, it will be 
remembered, was the dreamer's ideal man. In other 
words, the grandfather is the ideal of the dreamer 
and as such is dead but would live again. This is 
plainly the wish of the dream. 

Similarly, a young woman dreams that she is 
chased by a horrible, beastly looking man who does 
not catch her. The man, by association, turns out 
to be her husband whom she does not love, who 
drinks, and whose attitude toward her has never 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 281 

risen above the lust leveL The meaning and the 
wish of the dream seem clear but when we conclude 
that she wishes to get away from her husband we 
have only touched one-half the problem and that 
half about which the dreamer is fully conscious. 
The other side of the situation is that unconsciously 
she recognises her own longings as having something 
of the element of the untamed and the animal in 
them and she aspires to escape these destructive 
elements in herself. 

Both of these elements in the symbolic representa- 
tion of the conflict, which are so important in the 
energetics of its resolution, namely, the use of the 
same symbol to represent both ambivalent factors 
and the fact that the sjmibol represents that portion 
of the percipient which is brought forward for re- 
view, are well illustrated in an ancient dream of 
Alexander. While Alexander was encamped outside 
the city of Tyre to which he had long laid unsuccess- 
ful siege he had a dream. He dreamt that he saw a 
Satyr dancing upon a shield. Now a Satyr is a demi- 
god of the country while the shield is manifestly a 
symbol of war. It therefore seems quite reasonable 
to see in the dream a desire on the part of the king, 
who had become tired of this prolonged siege, to re- 
turn to the quiet and rest of peace and forego further 
warlike operations. The dream seems to mean the 
triumph of peace over war. The dream interpreter 
who was called to explain its meaning, however, saw 
deeper. Through a play upon words, the Greek for 
satyr being satyros, while sa Tyros {era Tvpo^) means 



282 CHAEACTEE FOEMATION 

Tyre is tMne. Thus the king could only get the 
peace he wanted by doing his duty and pushing the 
siege to a successful issue which he proceeded to do. 
Therefore peace and war were both represented by 
the symbolism and also that part of the dreamer 
which both wanted to retire and seek rest from the 
conflict and that part which wanted to go forward 
and succeed. 

The next aspect of the energetics of the conflict 
that is important to understand is the regressive 
tendency of its symbolisation. 

This aspect of the conflict can be introduced by 
telling briefly the story of a case communicated to 
me by Dr. Gregory. The patient was a young girl 
who lived in the country not far from New York 
City. Financial straits of the family made it incum- 
bent upon her to leave her home in the country and 
betake herself to New York to earn a livelihood. 
Upon the eve of her departure her parents, solicitous 
for her safety, warned her against the lures of the 
great city. They told her to be careful and not to 
be deceived by suave strangers who might approach 
her, and by no means ever to permit herself to 
yield to an invitation to take any alcohol, and they 
told her about knock-out drops ; if she needed infor- 
mation to ask an official, a policeman — never a 
stranger. This was the time, too, when the papers 
were filled with accounts of the exposures in the 
white slave traffic, and she had read of these. 

Shortly after her arrival in New York she was 
able to secure a position at a salary of $15 per week, 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 283 

got a boarding place, and everything went welL 
After a while, however, her employer came to her 
and told her that matters had not been going well 
with him in a business way and that therefore he 
would be forced to reduce her salary to $8 per week. 
This necessitated a readjustment on her part, and 
the first effort that she made was to see if she could 
not get another position that would pay her as well. 
This, however, she was unable to do and finally had 
to realise that she must go on at the reduced com- 
pensation. This required that she should cut down 
expenses and live cheaper. To that end she secured 
a room in a cheaper German boarding house on the 
East Side. 

Hardly had she settled in her new quarters than 
one evening at dinner she was begged to have a glass 
of beer ; the boarders being German, beer was com- 
monly served at the table. She refused and resisted, 
but finally yielded and drank a little beer. While 
sitting at the table she overheard two of the men 
opposite talking, and one said to the other, ^*I think 
it can be done for $50. '' This alarmed her consider- 
ably, and after leaving the table she went into her 
room and shut the door and went to bed. She heard 
constantly, however, footsteps about the house, and 
she felt convinced that something wrong was going 
on; that evil designs were in the minds of some of 
the boarders, and that they were preparing to invade 
her in her room. About this time, too, the little 
beer that she had drunk disagreed with her, made 
her stomach feel bad, and she was afraid that it had 



284 CHARACTER FORMATION 

been doped. She became more and more frightened, 
and finally arose, put on her things, hastily left the 
house and sought a physician. He made some exam- 
ination of her and looked at her tongue, and then, 
according to her story, said that he thought she had 
been poisoned. This was the last stroke. She 
rushed from the physician's office, shrieking into the 
street, and was shortly taken up by a policeman and 
sent to the Bellevue Pavilion. Here she was in a 
wild state of excitement, absolutely inaccessible for 
two or three days, and then finding that her environ- 
ment was a friendly one, that they were trying to 
do things for her and not to injure her, she gradually 
calmed down, and at the end of approximately three 
days she had quite recovered from the episode, had 
^iill insight, and could I'eave tfie; hospital. 

We are dealiiig here ' q is Ite' ^evidently with an 
^hysteriforih epi^^(3 of ,Ye:^'y acute onset and rapid 
subsidetice, but how are we to explain, to understand, 
the symptoms? I have cited the case because it 
would seem that here we have quite a simple illus- 
tration of the general concept of regression. 

In order to understand the mechanisms here in- 
volved we must realise first that this girl had had 
certain warnings from her parents on starting for 
New York. These warnings had been received, 
understood at the time, and then practically at least, 
laid aside and forgotten after she had arrived in the 
city and adjusted herself to the new conditions, 
secured employment and settled down in the new 
relations. Now a difficulty arises ; she has to make 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 285 

a complete readjustment which involves a consider- 
able sacrifice of her comfort, and this is a difficult 
thing to do. In her attempt to deal efficiently with 
reality she is not successful altogether. Now the 
interesting thing about her lack of success in dealing 
with the problem of her new adjustment shows itself 
by a psychosis that is easily seen to be nothing more 
than a realisation, a coming to life, as it were, of 
all the possibilities suggested by her parents' warn- 
ings. How can we understand this reanimation and 
reactivating of things which have gone before and 
been left behind? 

It will be seen that the psychosis can be under- 
stood if we first postulate a form of psycho-physical 
energy which has the capacity under certain circum- 
stances of flowing b§<?k, as it ,w^je, and re-animating 
old experiences. This; is the tiieory of the introver- 
sion of the libido. An elaboration of the theory is 
to the effect that the individual is constructive, 
creative, mentally healthy, so long as this energy is 
flowing outward in interest upon the external world 
of reality; that when it flows backward within the 
individual himself, then disorder of mind is the 
result. The occasion for a flowing backward of the 
energy or an introversion, as it is called, is some 
difficulty met with in effectively dealing with reality ; 
a difficulty arises and adjustment is impossible; the 
flow of the energy outward is impeded ; it is dammed 
up, and it flows backward. In this way old channels 
are reanimated as in the case cited. The path along 
which the libido has come is the path along which it 



286 CHARACTER FORMATION 

flows again when, for any reason, it meets with 
an obstacle which cannot be overcome. Tlie intro- 
verted regressive libido reanimates the old path- 
ways. 

The same thing is well shown by Jung in the case 
cited by him in his Fordham lectures.^ I will cite 
the case as he describes it. Iii its opening sentences 
it shows well the way of putting the symptoms from 
a purely psychological viewpoint as contrasted with 
the viewpoint of organ inferiority. 

^'No neurosis will grow on an unprepared soil 
where no germ of neurosis is already existing; the 
trauma will pass by without leaving any permanent 
and effective mark. From this simple consideration 
it is pretty clear that, to make it really effective, 
the patient must meet the shock with a certain in- 
ternal predisposition. This internal predisposition 
is not to be understood as meaning that totally ob- 
scure hereditary predisposition of which we know so 
little, but as a psychological development which 
reaches its apogee and its manifestation at the mo- 
ment, and even through, the trauma. 

**I will show you first of all by a concrete case the 
nature of the trauma and its psychological predispo- 
sition. A young lady suffered from severe hysteria 
after a sudden fright. She had been attending a 
social gathering that evening and was on her way 
home at midnight, accompanied by several acquaint- 
ances, when a carriage came behind her at full speed. 

4 Jung, C. G. : The Theory of Psychoanalysis. Nerv. and Ment. 
Dis. Monog. Se. No. 19. 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 287 

Every one else drew aside, but she, paralysed with 
fright, remained in the middle of the street and ran 
just in front of the horses. The coachman cracked 
his whip, cursed and swore without any result. She 
ran down the whole length of the street, which led 
to a bridge. There her strength failed her, and to 
escape the horses' feet she thought, in her extreme 
despair, of jumping into the water, but was pre- 
vented in time by passers-by. This very same lady 
happened to be present a little later on that bloody 
day, the 22nd of January, in St. Petersburg, when a 
street was cleared by soldiers' volleys. Eight and 
left of her she saw people dying or falling down badly 
wounded. Eemaining perfectly calm and clear- 
minded, she caught sight of a gate that gave her es- 
cape into another street. 

^^ These terrible moments did not agitate her, 
either at the time, or later on. Whence it must fol- 
low that the intensity of the trauma is of small 
pathogenic importance; the special conditions form 
the essential factors. Here, then, we have the key 
by which we are able to unlock at least one of the 
anterooms to the understanding of predisposition. 
We must next ask what were the special circum- 
stances in this carriage-scene. The terror and ap- 
prehension began as soon as the lady heard the 
horses' footsteps. It seemed to her for a moment 
as if these betokened some terrible fate, portending 
her death or something dreadful. Then she lost 
consciousness. The real causation is somehow con- 
nected with the horses. The predisposition of the 



288 CHARACTER FORMATION 

patient, who acts thus wildly at such a common-place 
occurrence, could perhaps be found in the fact that 
horses had a special significance for her. It might 
suffice, for instance, if she had been once concerned 
in some dangerous accident with horses. This as- 
sumption does hold good here. When she was seven 
years old, she was once out on a carriage-drive with 
the coachman; the horses shied and approached the 
steep river-bank at full speed. The coachman 
jumped off his seat, and shouted to her to do the 
same, which she was barely able to do, as she was 
frightened to death. Still, she sprang down at the 
right moment, whilst the horses and carriage were 
dashed down below. 

**It is unnecessary to prove that such an event 
must leave a lasting impression behind. But still it 
does not offer any explanation for the exaggerated 
reaction to an inadequate stimulus. Up till now we 
only know that this later symptom had its prologue 
in childhood, but the pathological side remains ob- 
scure. To solve this enigma we require other experi- 
ences. The amnesia which I will set forth fully 
later on shows clearly the disproportion between the 
so-called shock and the part played by phantasy. 
In this case phantasy must predominate to an ex- 
traordinary extent to provoke such an effect. The 
shock in itself was too insignificant. We are at first 
inclined to explain this incident by the shock that 
took place in childhood, but it seems to me with little 
success. It is difficult to understand why the effect 
of this infantile trauma had remained latent so long, 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 289 

and wliy it only now came to the surface. The 
patient must surely have had opportunities enough 
during her lifetime of getting out of the way of a 
carriage going full speed. The reminiscence of the 
danger to her life seems to be quite insufficiently ef- 
fective ; the real danger in which she was at that one 
moment in St. Petersburg did not produce the slight- 
est trace of neurosis, despite her being predisposed 
by an impressive event in her childhood. The whole 
of this traumatic event still lacks explanation ; from 
the point of view of the shock-theory we are hope- 
lessly in the dark. 

**You may excuse me if I return so persistently 
to the shock-theory. I consider this necessary, as 
now-a-days many people, even those who regard us 
seriously, still keep to this standpoint. Thus the 
opponents to psychoanalysis and those who never 
read psychoanalytic articles, or do so quite super- 
ficially, get the impression that in psychoanalysis 
the old shock-theory is still in force. 

**The question arises: what are we to understand 
by this predisposition, through which an insignificant 
event produces such a pathological effect? This is 
the question of chief significance, and we shall find 
that the same question plays an important role in 
the theory of neurosis, for we have to understand 
why apparently irrelevant events of the past are 
still producing such effects that they are able to 
interfere in an impish and capricious way with the 
normal reactions of actual life. 



290 CHARACTER FORMATION 

*^We noticed the remarkable fact that this patient 
was unaffected by situations which one might have 
expected to make a profound impression and yet 
showed an unexpected extreme pathological reaction 
to a quite everyday event. We took this occasion to 
express our doubt as to the etiological significance 
of the shock, and to investigate the so-called predis- 
position which rendered the trauma effective. The 
result of that investigation led us to what has just 
been mentioned. That it is by no means improbable 
that the origin of the neurosis is due to a retardation 
of the affective development. 

* ' You will now ask me what is to be understood by 
the retardation of the aifectivity of this hysteric. 
The patient lives in a world of phantasy, which can 
only be regarded as infantile. It is unnecessary to 
give a description of these phantasies, for you, as 
neurologists or psychiatrists, have the opportunity 
daily to listen to the childish prejudices, illusions 
and emotional pretensions to which neurotic people 
give way. The disinclination to face stern reality 
is the distinguishing trait of these phantasies — some 
lack of earnestness, some trifling, which sometimes 
hides real difficulties in a light-hearted manner, at 
others exaggerates trifles into great troubles. We 
recognise at once that inadequate psychic attitude 
towards reality which characterises the child, its 
wavering opinions and its deficient orientation in 
matters of the external world. With such an in- 
fantile mental disposition all kinds of desires, phan- 
tasies and illusions can grow luxuriantly, and this 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 291 

we have to regard as the critical causation. Through 
such phantasies people slip into an unreal attitude, 
pre-eminently ill-adapted to the world, which is 
bound some day to lead to a catastrophe. When we 
trace back the infantile phantasy of the patient to 
her earliest childhood we find, it is true, many dis- 
tinct, outstanding scenes which might well serve to 
provide fresh food for this or that variation in phan- 
tasy, but it would be vain to search for the so-called 
traumatic motive, whence something abnormal might 
have sprung, such an abnormal activity, let us say, 
as day-dreaming itself. There are certainly to be 
found traumatic scenes, although not in earliest 
childhood ; the few scenes of earliest childhood which 
were remembered seem not to be traumatic, being 
rather accidental events, which passed by without 
leaving any effect on her phantasy worth mention- 
ing. The earliest phantasies arose out of all sorts 
of vague and only partly understood impressions 
received from her parents. Many peculiar feelings 
centred around her father, vacillating between 
anxiety, horror, aversion, disgust, love and enthu- 
siasm. The case was like so many other cases of 
hysteria, where no traumatic etiology can be found, 
but which grows from the roots of a peculiar and 
premature activity of phantasy which maintains 
permanently the character of infantilism. 

'^You will object that in this case the scene with 
the shying horses represents the trauma. It is 
clearly the model of that night-scene which hap- 
pened nineteen years later, where the patient was 



V 



292 CHAEACTER FORMATION 

incapable of avoiding the trotting horses. That she 
wanted to plunge into the river has an analogy in 
the model scene, where the horses and carriage fell 
into the river. 

*^ Since the latter traumatic moment she suffered 
from hysterical fits. As I tried to show you, we 
do not find any trace of this^ apparent etiology de- 
veloped in the course of her phantasy life. It seems 
as if the danger of losing her life, that first time, 
when the horses shied, passed without leaving any 
emotional trace. None of the events that occurred 
in the following years showed any trace of that 
fright. In parenthesis let me add, that perhaps it 
never happened at all.^ It may have even been a 
mere phantasy, for I have only the assertions of the 
patient. All of a sudden, some eighteen years later, 
this event becomes of importance and is, so to say, 
reproduced and carried out in all its details. This 
assumption is extremely unlikely, and becomes still 
more inconceivable if we also bear in mind that 
the story of the shying horses may not even be true. 
Be that as it may, it is and remains almost unthink- 
able that an affect should remain buried for years 
and then suddenly explode. In other cases there is 
exactly the same state of affairs. I know, for in- 
stance, of a case in which the shock of an earth- 
quake, long recovered from, suddenly came back as 
a lively fear of earthquakes, although this reminis- 

5 Italics mine. That it was not a fact in the ordinary sense 
makes no difference. It was a psychological fact and is therefore as 
worthy of scientific treatment as any other category of fact. 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 293 

cence could not be explained by the external circum- 
stances. 

^^It is a very suspicious circumstance that these 
patients frequently show a pronounced tendency to 
account for their illnesses by some long-past event, 
ingeniously withdrawing the attention of the physi- 
cian from the present moment towards some false 
track in the past. This false track was the first one 
pursued by the psychoanalytic theory. To this false 
hypothesis we owe an insight into the understand- 
ing of the neurotic symptoms never before reached, 
an insight we should not have gained if the investiga- 
tion had not chosen this path, really guided thither, 
however, by the misleading tendencies of the patient. 

'^But let us return to our own case. The follow- 
ing question arises: If the old trauma is not of 
etiological significance, then the cause of the manifest 
neurosis is probably to be found in the retardation 
of the emotional development. We must therefore 
disregard the patient's assertion that her hysterical 
crises date from the fright from the shying horses, 
although this fright was in fact the beginning of 
her evident illness. This event only seems to be 
important, although it is not so in reality. This 
same formula is valid for all the so-called shocks. 
They only seem to be important because they are at 
the starting-point of the external expression of an 
abnormal condition. As explained in detail, this ab- 
normal condition is an anachronistic continuation 
of an infantile stage of libido-development. These 



294 CHARACTER FORMATION 

patients still retain forms of the libido which they 
ought to have renounced long ago. It is impossible 
to give a list, as it were, of these forms, for they are 
of an extraordinary variety. The most common, 
which is scarcely ever absent, is the excessive ac- 
tivity of phantasies, characterised by an unconcerned 
exaggeration of subjective Welshes. This exagger- 
ated activity is always a sign of want of proper em- 
ployment of the libido. The libido sticks fast to its 
use in phantasies, instead of being employed in a 
more rigorous adaptation to the real conditions of 
life. 

*^With this conception of Freud's we have to re- 
turn to the question of the etiology of the neuroses. 
We have seen that the psychoanalytic theory began 
with a traumatic event in childhood, which was only 
later on found to be a phantasy, at least in many 
cases. In consequence, the theory became modified, 
and tried to find in the development of abnormal 
phantasy the main etiological significance. The in- 
vestigation of the unconscious, made by the col- 
laboration of many workers, carried on over a space 
of ten years, provided an extensive empirical m.a- 
terial, which demonstrated that the incest-complex 
was the beginning of the morbid phantasies. But it 
was no longer thought that the incest-complex was 
a special complex of neurotic people. It was demon- 
strated to be a constituent of a normal infantile 
psyche too. We cannot tell, by its mere existence, 
if this complex will give rise to a neurosis or not. 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 295 

To become pathogenic, it must give rise to a con- 
flict ; that is, the complex, which in itself is harmless, 
has become dynamic, and thus gives rise to a con- 
flict. 

* ' Herewith, we come to a new and important ques- 
tion. The whole etiological problem is altered, if the 
infantile * root-complex' is only a general form, which 
is not pathogenic in itself, and requires, as we saw 
in our previous exposition, to be subsequently set in 
action. Under these circumstances, we dig in vain 
among the reminiscences of earliest childhood, as 
they give us only the general forms of the later con- 
flicts, but not the conflict itself. 

^*I believe the best thing I can do is to describe the 
further development of the theory by demonstrat- 
ing the case of that young lady whose story you have 
heard in part in one of the former lectures. You 
will probably remember that the shying of the 
horses, by means of the anamnestic explanation, 
brought back the reminiscence of a comparable scene 
in childhood. We here discussed the trauma theory. 
We found that we had to look for the real patholog- 
ical element in the exaggerated phantasy, which took 
its origin in a certain retardation of the psychic 
sexual development. We have now to apply our 
theoretical standpoint to the origin of this particular 
type of illness, so that we may understand how, just 
at that moment, this event of her childhood, which 
seemed to be of such potency, could come to constel- 
lation. 

^ ' The simplest way to come to an understanding of 



296 CHARACTER FORMATION 

this important event would be by making an exact 
inquiry into the circumstances of the moment. The 
first thing I did was to question the patient about 
the society in which she had been at that time, and 
as to what was the farewell gathering to which she 
had been just before. She had been at a farewell 
supper, given in honour of her best friend, who was 
going to a foreign health-resort for a nervous ill- 
ness. We hear that this friend is happily married, 
and is the mother of one child. We have some right 
to doubt this assertion of her happiness. If she 
were really happily married, she probably would 
not be nervous and would not need a cure. When 
I put my question differently, I learned that my pa- 
tient had been brought back into the host's house as 
soon as she was overtaken by her friends, as this 
house was the nearest place to bring her to in safety. 
In her exhausted condition she received his hospital- 
ity. As the patient came to this part of her history 
she suddenly broke ofP, was embarrassed, fidgeted 
and tried to turn to another subject. Evidently we 
had now come upon some disagreeable reminiscences, 
which suddenly presented themselves. After the pa- 
tient had overcome obstinate resistances, it was ad- 
mitted that something very remarkable had happened 
that night. The host made her a passionate declara- 
tion of love, thus giving rise to a situation that might 
well be considered difficult and painful, considering 
the absence of the hostess. Ostensibly this declara- 
tion came like a flash of lightning from a clear sky. 
A small dose of criticism applied to this assertion 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 297 

will teach us that these things never drop from the 
clouds, but have always their previous history. It 
was the work of the following weeks to dig out piece- 
meal a whole, long love-story. 

**I can thus roughly describe the picture I got at 
finally. As child the patient was thoroughly boyish, 
loved only turbulent games for boys, laughed at her 
own sex, and flung aside all feminine ways and oc- 
cupations. After puberty, tie time when the sex- 
question should have come nearer to her, she began 
to shun all society; she hated and despised, as it 
were, everything which could remind her even re- 
motely of the biological destination of mankind, and 
lived in a world of phantasies which had nothing in 
common with the rude reality. So she escaped, up 
to her twenty-fourth year, all the little adventures, 
hopes and expectations which ordinarily move a 
woman of this age. (In this respect women are very 
often remarkably insincere towards themselves and 
towards the physician.) But she became acquainted 
with two men who were destined to destroy the 
thorny hedge which had grown all around her. Mr. 
A. was the husband of her best friend at the time ; 
Mr. B. was the bachelor-friend of this family. Both 
were to her taste. It seemed to her pretty soon that 
Mr. B. was much more sympathetic to her, and from 
this resulted a more intimate relationship between 
herself and him, and the possibility of an engage- 
ment was discussed. Through her relations with 
Mr. B., and through her friend, she met Mr. A fre- 
quently. In an inexplicable way his presence very 



298 CHARACTER FORMATION 

often excited her and made her nervous. Just at 
this time our friend went to a big party. All her 
friends were there. She became lost in thought, and 
played as in a dream with her ring, which suddenly 
slipped from her hand and rolled under the table. 
Both men tried to find it, and Mr. B. managed to get 
it. With an expressive smile he put the ring back 
on her finger and said: ^You know what this 
means?' At that moment a strange and irresistible 
feeling came over her, she tore the ring from her 
finger and threw it out of the open window. Evi- 
dently a painful moment ensued, and she soon left 
the company, feeling deeply depressed. A short 
time later she found herself, for her holidays, acci- 
dentally in the same health-resort where Mr. A. and 
his wife were staying. Mrs. A. now became more 
and more nervous, and, as she felt ill, had to stay 
frequently at home. The patient often went out with 
Mr. A. alone. One day they were out in a small 
boat. She was boisterously merry, and suddenly 
fell overboard. Mr. A. saved her with great diffi- 
culty, and lifted her, half unconscious, into the boat. 
He then kissed her. With this romantic event the 
bonds were woven fast. To defend herself, our 
patient tried energetically to get herself engaged to 
Mr. B., and to imagine that she loved him. Of 
course this queer play did not escape the sharp eye 
of feminine jealousy. Mrs. A., her friend, felt the 
secret, was worried by it, and her nervousness grew 
proportionately. It became more and more neces- 
sary for her to go to a foreign health-resort. The 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 299 

farewell-party was a dangerous opportunity. The 
patient knew that her friend and rival was going off 
the same evening, so Mr. A. would be alone. Cer- 
tainly she did not see this opportunity clearly, as 
women have the notable capacity *to think' purely 
emotionally, and not intellectually. For this reason, 
it seems to them as if they never thought about 
certain matters at all, but as a matter of fact she 
had a queer feeling all the evening. She felt ex- 
tremely nervous, and when Mrs. A. had been accom- 
panied to the station and had gone, the hysterical 
attack occurred on her way back. ^ I asked her of 
what she had been thinking, or what she felt at the 
actual moment when the trotting horses came along. 
Her answer was, she had only a frightful feeling, 
the feeling that something was very near to her, 
which she could not escape. As you know, the con- 
sequence was that the exhausted patient was brought 
back into the house of the host, Mr. A. A simple 
human mind would understand the situation without 
difficulty. An uninitiated person would say: *Well, 
that is clear enough, she only intended to return by 
one way or another to Mr. A's house,' but the psy- 
chologist would reproach this layman for his incor- 
rect way of expressing himself, and would tell him 
that the patient was not conscious of the motives of 
her behaviour, and that it was, therefore, not permis- 
sible to speak of the patient's intention to return to 
Mr. A's house. 

^' There are, of course, learned psychologists who 
are capable of furnishing many theoretical reasons 



300 CHARACTER FORMATION 

for disputing the meaning of this behaviour. They 
base their reasons on the dogma of the identity of 
consciousness and psyche. The psychology inaugu- 
rated by Freud recognised long ago that it is impos- 
sible to estimate psychological actions as to their 
final meaning by conscious motives, but that the 
objective standard of their psychological results has 
to be applied for their right evaluation. Now-a-days 
it cannot be contested any longer that there are 
unconscious tendencies too, which have a great influ- 
ence on our modes of reaction, and on the effects to 
which these in turn give rise. What happened in 
Mr. A's house bears out this observation ; our patient 
made a sentimental scene, and Mr. A. was induced 
to answer it with a declaration of love. Looked at 
in the light of this last event, the whole previous 
history seems to be very ingeniously directed towards 
just this end, but throughout the conscience of the 
patient struggled consciously against it. Our theo- 
retical profit from this story is the clear conception 
that an unconscious purpose or tendency has brought 
on to the stage the scene of the fright from the 
horses, utilising thus very possibly that infantile 
reminiscence, where the shying horses galloped 
towards the catastrophe. Eeviewing the whole ma- 
terial, the scene with the horses — the starting point 
of the illness — seems now to be the keystone of a 
planned edifice. The fright, and the apparent trau- 
matic effect of the event in childhood, are only 
brought, on the stage in the peculiar way character- 
istic of hysteria. But what is thus put on the stage 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 301 

has become almost a reality. We know from hun- 
dreds of experiences that certain hysterical pains 
are only put on the stage in order to reap certain 
advantages from the sufferer's surroundings. The 
patients not only believe that they suffer, but their 
sufferings are, from a psychological standpoint, as 
real as those due to organic causes; nevertheless, 
they are but stage-effects. 

^^This utilisation of reminiscences to put on the 
stage any illness, or an apparent etiology, is called 
a regression of the libido. The libido goes back to 
reminiscences, and makes them actual, so that an 
apparent etiology is produced. In this case, by the 
old theory, the fright from the horses would seem 
to be based on a former shock. The resemblance 
between the two scenes is unmistakable, and in both 
cases the patient's fright is absolutely real. At any 
rate, we have no reason to doubt her assertions in 
this respect, as they are in full harmony with all 
other experiences. The nervous asthma, the hysteri- 
cal anxiety, the psychogenic depressions and exalta- 
tions, the pains, the convulsions — they are all very 
real, and that physician who has himself suffered 
from a psychogenic symptom knows that it feels 
absolutely real. Eegressively re-lived reminis- 
cences, even if they were but phantasies, are as real 
as remembrances of events that have once been real. 

**As the term ^regression of libido' shows, we 
understand by this retrograde mode of application 
of the libido, a retreat of the libido to former stages. 
In our example, we are able to recognise clearly the 



302 CHARACTER FORMATION 

way the process of regression is carried on. At that 
farewell party, which proved a good opportunity to 
be alone with the host, the patient shrank from the 
idea of turning this opportunity to her advantage, 
and yet was overpowered by her desires, which she 
had never consciously realised up to that moment. 
The libido was not used consciously for that definite 
purpose, nor was this purpose ever acknowledged. 
The libido had to carry it out through the uncon- 
scious, and through the pretext of the fright caused 
by an apparently terrible danger. Her feeling at 
the moment when the horses approached illustrates 
our formula most clearly; she felt as if something 
inevitable had now to happen. 

^^The process of regression is beautifully demon- 
strated in an illustration already used by Freud. 
The libido can be compared with a stream which is 
dammed up as soon as its course meets any impedi- 
ment, whence arises an inundation. If this stream 
has previously, in its upper reaches, excavated other 
channels, then these channels will be filled up again 
by reason of the damming below. To a certain 
extent they would appear to be real river beds, filled 
with water as before, but at the same time, they 
only have a temporary existence. It is not that the 
stream has permanently chosen the old channels, but 
only for as long as the impediment endures in the 
main stream. The affluents do not always carry 
water, because they were from the first, as it were, 
not independent streams, but only former stages of 
development of the main river, or passing possibil- 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 303 

ities, to which an inundation has given the oppor- 
tunity for fresh existence. This illustration can 
directly be transferred to the development of the 
application of the libido. The definite direction, the 
main river, is not yet found during the childish 
development of sexuality. The libido goes instead 
into all possible by-paths, and only gradually does 
the definite form develop. But the more the stream 
follows out its main channel, the more the affluents 
will dry up and lose their importance, leaving only 
traces of former activity. Similarly, the importance 
of the childish precursors of sexuality disappears 
completely as a rule, only leaving behind certain 
traces. 

^^If in later life an impediment arises, so that the 
damming of the libido reanimates the old by-paths, 
the condition thus excited is properly a new one, and 
something abnormal. 

^*The former condition of the child is normal 
usage of the libido, whilst the return of the libido 
towards the childish past is something abnormal. 
Therefore, in my opinion, it is an erroneous ter- 
minology to call the infantile sexual manifestations 
* perversions,' for it is not permissible to give 
normal manifestations pathological terms. This 
erroneous usage seems to be responsible for the con- 
fusion of the scientific public. The terms employed 
in neurotic psychology have been misapplied here, 
under the assumption that the abnormal by-paths of 
the libido discovered in neurotic people are the same 
phenomena as are to be found in children.'' 



304 CHAKACTER FORMATION 

I have cited these cases rather fully because of the 
importance of the concept of regression of the libido. 
A whole host of psychotic symptoms are traceable to 
this cause as well as many peculiarities of character 
and conduct. In these cases we see the regression 
actually taking place and see also how it works. 

In discussing the meaning of regression the first 
and most important fact which seems to be in evi- 
dence is that regression means failure and that the 
degree of failure can be measured by the degree of 
regression. For example: both of the cases just 
cited represent hysterical types of reaction in which 
the libido regression is global, that is, massive, going 
back to actual, so to speak, whole, complete situations 
in the life of the patient either in fact or in phan- 
tasy. The libido remains within ontogenetic bounds, 
it does not regress beyond the limits of the indi- 
vidual's own development. We have already seen 
examples of archaic types of reaction (Chapter X), 
in which, as a result of libido regression, the indi- 
vidual is carried back to levels representative of 
stages in the history of the race of lower cultural 
development (animism). This regression to phylo- 
genetically older levels is much more serious, and 
is, I think, the most characteristic element in the 
dementia prsecox types of reaction. 

Failure means an inability of the libido to find an 
adequate outlet at the higher levels and therefore 
it has to seek levels which are older and in w^hich 
the discharge pathways have been deeply channelled. 
Here there seems to be no question but that the 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 305 

libido can get out. From the two cases cited, how- 
ever, we see that the whole matter is not quite so 
simple. Perhaps the libido can get out at the older 
levels but in so doing it offends the ideals which the 
individual has acquired in his upward strivings and 
so the result is illness. 

There would be no symbolisation if there were no 
conflict and no failure. This is well illustrated by 
the history of machine design. Almost any machine 
will illustrate the point but take the type-writer for 
instance.^ During its early history it was most 
elaborately decorated with paintings of highly col- 
oured flowers, landscapes, and gilded designs. In 
proportion to the net result of the improvements, 
as time went on, the decorations decreased. It 
would seem as if that portion of the libido which 
went into the creation of the type-writer but which 
failed in securing efficient results expressed itself in 
phantasy formations. If the libido is free and flows 
without impediment into reality where it finds itself 
fully effective there is none left for phantasieing, 
no lost motion, desire translates itself immediately 
in efficient action. What then is the object, what the 
aim of phantasy formation! Has it a function in 
bringing about the resolution of the conflict! 

The object of phantasy may be considered as two 
fold. The first, and less important object, I think, 
is the object of finding an outlet for the libido at an 
older level when faced with a situation to which 

6 Personal communication from Prof. D. S. Kimball, Professor of 
Machine Design, Cornell University. 



306 CHARACTER FORMATION 

adjustment is difficult. It is a way of letting off 
steam or as the phrase goes of emotional catharsis. 
It is pretty difficult for any one, no matter how well 
equipped, to continuously live up to the tension de- 
manded by efficient reaction, all day long every day. 
The dream serves as a let down from this tension, 
it is a drop from the requirements of reality. Per- 
haps the psyche gets a little surcease in this way, a 
little rest for tackling the problems again with re- 
newed energy. 

The more important function of phantasy is 
coupled with its already alluded to function of por- 
traying the conflict, that is, its picturing of the two 
opposed tendencies that are battling for supremacy. 

In Chapter II I have shown how consciousness 
arises out of conflict, how it only comes into existence 
under the necessity of exercising choice, at moments 
of adaptation to new and hitherto unadjusted to 
situations. Instinct goes straight to its goal, con- 
sciousness is unnecessary, the adjustment is perfect. 
The Ammophila hirsuta is able to sting with the most 
marvellous anatomical accuracy each of the nine 
nerve ganglia of its caterpillar victim and then 
squeeze its head in its mandibles just hard enough 
to paralyse without causing death. The accuracy of 
the Ammophila is greater than that which could be 
acquired by the entomologist yet we have no reason 
to assume that it is accompanied by consciousness. 
The relation between the Ammophila and the eater- 
pillar is a determined one, nothing is left to choice, 
and therefore there is no consciousness. As soon. 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 307 

however, as life has become so complex that definite 
relations such as that between the Ammophila and 
the caterpillar no longer are possible, when each 
situation calling for action is in some respects a new 
situation and therefore calls for a new adjustment, 
action based upon choice, then consciousness enters 
upon the scene. 

This complexity is just the characteristic thing 
about man and his life. The compounding and the 
re-compounding of reflexes has gone on to possibil- 
ities ever broader but correspondingly less and less 
predictable and forcing man along the pathway of 
development which leads always into the unknown 
and therefore to an increasing number of situations 
that are encountered for the first time. The fact 
that consciousness only arises at moments of conflict 
would then indicate that, in order that the conflict 
should be resolved and result in efficient action, it 
must enter consciousness. In other words, that the 
redistribution of energy which is necessary in order 
to act can only be effected through the medium of 
consciousness. Just what I mean by this will be 
clear if it is recalled what I said in Chapter V about 
the symbol as a carrier of energy. 

The object of the symbolisation of the conflict is, 
therefore, in general, to bring the whole matter into 
consciousness but in particular to bring that particu- 
lar element into consciousness which is interfering 
with the progress of the individual. This element 
in terms of the unconscious is the instinctive tend- 
ency that drags back on the road of progress. In 



308 CHARACTER FORMATION 

terms of the Adlerian view-point it would be the in- 
ferior organ. Let us take up first this latter aspect 
of the situation. 

It is about the defective functioning of the inferior 
organ that the feeling of insufficiency tends to con- 
centrate. In other words, it is the inferior organ 
that makes efficient relating of the individual to his 
environment inadequate and the way he fails is 
determined by the inefficiency of his adaptation as 
mediated by the organ in question. Now the fact 
that his failure is associated with deficiency of func- 
tion of a particular organ tends to drag that organ 
into consciousness, that is, makes it the object of 
attention. Take for example, the case of the boy 
cited by Adler, who suffered repeated injuries to his 
eye. These injuries bring the eye within the focus 
of conscious attention and therefore prompt the 
doing of those things which will minimise the possi- 
bility of further injuries. As Adler ^ puts it, *^a 
particular interest seeks to protect the inferior 
organ." 

The symbolisation of the conflict becomes, there- 
fore, a means of securing the assistance of the psyche 
in dealing with the situation. That the whole diffi- 
culty is not at once dragged into full conscious 
awareness in an intellectually controlled situation 
is perfectly understandable. Such a result can be ac- 
complished only by the expenditure of a great deal of 
effort. An alegbraic formula cannot be clearly com- 
prehended at once, there must have preceded a long 

7 Loc. cit. 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 309 

period of preparation, in studying arithmetic, etc., 
before even a faint glimmer of its meaning is pos- 
sible. The possibilities, however, when the help of 
the psyche is assured are tremendous. To quote 
Adler again :^ *^A particular view-point has taught 
me how often a morphologic or functional deficiency 
of an organ is converted to a higher development of 
that organ. The stuttering boy Demosthenes be- 
came the greatest orator of Greece, and to-day we 
seldom find such a heaping up of defects of speech 
and signs of degeneration in the mouth as in orators, 
actors and singers." 

If the defective organ can get into the psyche, 
that is, if attention, interest can be centred upon 
it then that redistribution of energy can begin which 
we call compensation. The redistribution of energy 
is effected by means of the symbol. The symbol 
carries the energy over to the defective organ. 

The same argument may be used with reference 
to the dragging of the unconscious component of the 
conflict in consciousness. I have discussed the prob- 
lem with reference to inferior organs because that 
tended to make it more concrete and easy of under- 
standing. The only difference in discussing the 
problem from the point of view of the unconscious 
factor is that there may be no visible and tangible 
defective organ. The organ defect here may be only 
hypothetical, as for example, a defect in cortical 
architectonics or even in an organ of the mind 
itself, whatever that might be taken to mean. In 

8 Log. cit. 



310 CHARACTER FORMATION 

any case we have to think of special mental aptitudes 
as having a physical substratum of sufficiently com- 
plex cortical structure for subserving the necessary 
conditioned reflexes. From this discussion we are 
brought to a further reason for considering the 
origin of consciousness to be in conflict and we also 
see that very truly consciousness, to use the expres- 
sion of HalFs,^ is * ^ remedial. ' ' 

Maeder recognises this same principle, I take it, in 
the dream when he says : ^^ ^^In the dream there is at 
work a preparatory arranging function which be- 
longs to the work of adjustment." Here we see 
consciousness at its lowest ebb, so to speak, but even 
here Maeder recognises in its work an effort at 
adjustment. The success of such a work of adjust- 
ment is graphically illustrated by the case cited by 
Flournoy^^ of a young woman who was so beside 
herself that she decided on suicide as the only escape 
from her sufferings. She went to the water's edge 
and was about to throw herself in when the image 
of a physician, in whom she had great confidence 
and upon whose advice she had learned to lean, rose 
from the water, took her by the arm and led her 
home, meantime counselling her upon her duties to 
her children and otherwise pointing out to her how 
wrong was her contemplated act. 

Here we come upon the teleological function of the 

^Loc. cit. 

10 The Dream Problem, Nerv. and Ment. Dis. Monog. Se. No. 22. 

iiFlournoy: Automatisme Teleologique Antisuicide. Un eas de 
Suicide Emp^ch6 par une Hallucination. Arch. d. Psychologies Tome 
VII, Oct., 1907. 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 311 

phantasy formations which has been emphasised 
more particularly by Maeder and especially with 
reference to dreams. Just a couple of examples. 
Jung ^2 reports the dream of a Russian Jew who, 
greatly against the dictates of his conscience, de- 
cided to renounce his religion. His mother appeared 
to him in a dream and said: *'If you do this I will 
choke you.'' Here the *^ still small voice'' literally 
spoke and he obeyed. One of my patients, among 
other symptoms, had auditory hallucinations. The 
voices told him that he did not take enough money 
home from his wages. Questioning elicited the fact 
that following a mishap with his work he had taken 
an additional drink or so each day. As he was in 
the habit of taking all of his wages home except what 
little went for car-fare and lunch, it will be seen that 
the voices went right to the root of the difficulty. 
The patient was suffering from an alcoholic psy- 
chosis. 

In these examples the indications as to the line 
along which the individual's conduct must proceed, 
in order to resolve the conflict, are very plain. That 
the phantasy formations should contain such intima- 
tions is a corollary to the proposition that they sym- 
bolise both factors that are opposed. In the dream 
of the young man standing by the dead body of the 
grandfather we have seen that the grandfather 
symbolised both aspects of the conflict. The move- 
ment of the body signifying that he (the dreamer's 

12 Jung, C. G. : The Psychology of Dementia Prsecox. Nerv. 
and Ment. Dis. Monog. Se. No. 3. 



312 CHARACTER FORMATION 

ideal) did not rest easily in death is the teleological 
element in the dream. The dreamer must be up and 
doing and successful, like his grandfather, in order 
to be happy. 

Speaking of the two directions of the libido, pro- 
gressive and regressive, Maeder says : ^^ 

^^The two main principles here mentioned are 
after all only an expression of the two typical forms 
of activity of the libido, progressive and regressive. 
They are metaphorically expressed, two channels at 
the disposal of the libido current. The important 
point is the proper distribution of the same. They 
are also comparable to two voices which, more or 
less harmoniously, sing the song of life. In neuro- 
sis, as in the first phase of cure by analysis, the 
voice of regression drowns the other; this can be 
proved in numerous dreams which are to be found 
in literature; I have therefore avoided giving ex- 
amples. It is true that in all these dreams traces 
of the drowned voice of progression are demon- 
strable. It is to this point, it seems to me, that the 
analyst of the future should attach the most impor- 
tance, for we are first and foremost healers, and 
therefore it is our duty to point out to our wander- 
ing patients the light that shines in the distance. 
This gleam of light is to serve them as a lighthouse 
in the storms of passion. In the course of the treat- 
ment the voice of progression will gradually become 
louder, until it finally takes the dominant note. The 
connection between pleasure and displeasure prin- 

13 "The Dream Problem," loc. cit. 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 313 

ciple and the cathartic function, on the one hand, and 
between the reality principle and the preparatory 
function on the other, can here be merely indicated. 
An outburst of anger, to avoid internal tension, the 
striving for satisfaction by replacements, are frank 
unloadings (cathartic cleans ings) ; the weighing and 
representing of the solation of a conflict prepares 
for freedom and leads to reality.'' 

One final point to conclude this discussion of the 
mechanisms invol .ed in the resolution of the conflict. 
In the chapter on symbolism I have described the 
symbol as a carrier of energy and said that the 
symbol had proved its greater value over other 
energy carriers such as chemical radicals, hormones 
and reflexes because it was more adjustable to vary- 
ing conditions and was capable of rendering service 
apparently without limit in man's advance in the 
control of his environment. Let us examine some 
of those elements that make the symbol so adjustable. 

In the first place, the symbol accumulates, so to 
speak, the energy of the conflict. The difficulty is 
nucleated by the symbol. It is in the symbol that 
the whole energy of the disturbance is gathered to- 
gether. This is exceptionally well seen in the bi- 
polarity of the symbol and its overdetermination. 
All sorts of ^meanings are crowded together and 
represented by a single symbol, even meanings that 
are diametrically opposed — the ambivalency of the 
symbol. We have seen many examples of this 
mechanism. A single symbol in a dream for ex- 
ample may represent the doctor, back of him the 



314 CHAKACTER FOEMATION 

sweetheart, and then the brother, and hidden behind 
the brother the father. At the same time the symbol 
will represent both the regressive and progressive 
aspects of the dreamer's love which goes out to these 
different persons. In general the regressive aspect 
is represented by the attachment which means de- 
pendence and the progressive by the love that creates 
an ideal. 

To revert to the dream already referred to of the 
woman trying to speak to her brother outside the 
convent. She was standing outside and could see 
her brother within putting on his vestments pre- 
paratory to hearing confessions. She tried to speak 
to him but could not make herself heard because the 
window was closed. He tried to speak also but she 
could not understand for the same reason. She then 
tried to reach him but failed and awoke very much 
depressed. It will be remembered that the brother 
had been dead some years. Hence the closed win- 
dow, the failure to make herself heard, the depres- 
sion on awaking. 

This patient had had a sexual trauma when she 
was a young girl. The man on this occasion clearly 
symbolised her father. Later in life she had been 
very greatly attracted by another man who quite as 
clearly symbolised her brother. But back of the 
very evident symbolisation of her brother he also 
symbolised a certain aspect of the father, the lovable 
aspect, the opposite aspect of that represented by 
the first man who symbolised the aspect of severity. 
Now, it will be recalled, that this patient was able 



RESOLUTION OF THE CONFLICT 315 

to get well by transferring her affection for her dead 
brother to the physician and confessing to him as 
she had always wanted to confess to her brother but 
had put it off until too late. It is evident, therefore, 
first, that in confessing to the physician she has 
finally accomplished, by what has been called the 
process of resymbolisation, the impossible. Namely 
she has confessed to her brother though he has been 
dead many years. But more than that, for as the 
brother image only stands in front of and hides the 
father image, she has also confessed to her father. 
Inasmuch as she is a devout Catholic I think it not 
too much to add that she has not only succeeded in 
confessing to her father, who also is long since dead, 
but also to her father in heaven, her Heavenly 
Father, and so has secured his forgiveness. But 
still further, the physician also, because he symbol- 
ises the brother also symbolises the father and there- 
fore in confessing to him she is able to free herself 
completely of her sin and secure absolute forgive- 
ness. The physician has, for the time being, been 
the priest to her. 

All these things could be effected because of the 
adjustability of the symbol. The brother in the 
dream is the symbol for the whole situation and it 
is that symbol which is capable of making the neces- 
sary transfers of energy to effect a resolution of the 
conflict. One gets the impression that the ground 
is prepared and that the symbol is only awaiting a 
chance to find the appropriate situation in which to 
find expression like an enzyme that requires certain 



316 CHARACTER FORMATION 

conditions of temperature in order to effect its 
changes. Now precisely a very important feature 
of this proposition is the concentration of the whole 
difficulty in a single symbol so that when an oppor- 
tunity does arise it can be seized at once and in toto. 
The single symbol is able to adjust itself to the de- 
mands of a gradually developing meaning and so 
carry the energy to ever higher levels. This is the 
function of the symbol to which all the others, bi- 
polarity, over-determination, are subsidiary. 



CHAPTEE XIII 
SUMMARY AND SYNTHESIS 

It has been my aim in the preceding pages to 
picture man, not as an association of mutually inde- 
pendent parts, a body and a mind, but as a biological 
unit; not as a separate living being surrounded by 
an environment, but as a bit of that life which 
expresses itself in all living beings. This individual 
living body, as we know it, is the material in and 
through which energy manifests itself in a constant 
tendency, with an unre6iitting effort, to develop. I 
have called this energy libido ; it has been called by 
many other names, and been treated as the same in 
kind whether found at work in the individual cell, in 
the functioning of an organ, or in the psyche. 

At the very basis of life we found this energy at 
work trying to produce results but having, in order 
to succeed, to overcome resistances, and so conflict 
was found to be fundamental. Many examples of 
conflict were given in the different departments of 
biology and finally in the psychological realm where 
we found that clear conscious awareness only arose 
at moments of conflict so that here again conflict was 
at the basis of a phenomenon of life. Consciousness 
only appears to have arisen when the living being 
became enormously complex and seems to be an 

317 



318 CHARACTER FORMATION 

expression of conflict, in some way, only when these 
very complex conditions have been developed. It 
therefore arises in the general course of develop- 
ment and is not an epiphenomenon outside the play 
of natural forces. 

The psyche, like the other functions of life, being 
a product of development must therefore have a 
history, not only individual but racial, both onto- 
genetic and phylogenetic. A given state of the 
psyche can therefore only receive its full explana- 
tion by an understanding of that history. Psycho- 
analysis is a technique for discovering that history. 

From this point on the book has dealt with the 
mechanisms of the conflict from different aspects. 
At first it was necessary to inquire into the ways in 
which the conflict received expression at the psycho- 
logical level. This resulted in the definition of the 
fore-conscious and the unconscious and in formu- 
lating the principles of symbolism. The unconscious 
was seen to be the repository of those instinctive 
tendencies which operate as resistances to progress 
while the symbol was seen to be the agent, the tool 
at the psychological level, for effecting that redis- 
tribution of energy essential for the resolution of 
the conflict. And finally certain subsidiary mechan- 
isms were examined which make for efficiency in the 
exercise of this function. 

The particular way in which the symbol accom- 
plishes these results was shown in the dream mech- 
anisms; the various aspects of the will to power, 
the all-powerfulness of thought and the partial libido 



SUMMARY AND SYNTHESIS 319 

strivings; and especially in the progressive sym- 
bolisations which take place in the course of the 
family romance. 

There remains only the examination of certain 
attitudes towards these various problems which have 
arisen as different investigators have taken up the 
work. This examination is not so much with the 
purpose of attempting to settle the various disputed 
points, as for the purpose of, in this way, broaden- 
ing our view and deepening our insight into the 
whole situation. 

In the first place — I have spoken all along of a 
nutritional libido, the function of which was self- 
preservation, and of a sexual libido the function of 
which was race perpetuation; and I have spoken of 
them in this contrasted way thus intimating that 
there were two different libidos or at least two 
different forms of expression of the libido. As a 
matter of fact the question is often raised whether 
the individual starts off with two separate libido 
streams, or whether there is only one stream and 
that one sexual. This latter view is emphasised by 
such claims as that of Freud that the act of nursing 
at the breast gives sexual pleasure and his compar- 
ison of the manifestations of pleasure which accom- 
pany it and the expressions of satisfaction following, 
with similar manifestations accompanying and fol- 
lowing the sexual act. From this standpoint all 
pleasure is at root sexual, even the pleasure derived 
from satisfying hunger. 

To this general conclusion Jung excepts and says 



320 CHARACTER FORMATION 

that if the act of sucking can be termed sexual then 
by a parity of reasoning the sexual act itself may be 
termed nutritional. 

To my mind there ought to be no serious difficulty 
here. In the physical sciences we have the concept 
energy and also the concept of the transfer of one 
kind of energy into another, as heat into electricity, 
I electricity into light, etc., so here if we think of the 
libido only as energy we will be on safe ground. 
Now the question is, To what use is the energy put? 
As we have seen that all libido trends may be classi- 
fied into one of two groups, the nutritional and the 
sexual, the question becomes more specifically, Is 
the libido being used for self-preservation (nutri- 
tional) or race perpetuation (sexual) ends? 

The example money, which I have already used, 
shows this very well. Money is a symbol of energy, 
to all intents and purposes, is energy, that is, libido, 
bound up in a particular symbol. Now money may 
be used to buy bread and meat, thus using it as nutri- 
tional libido, or it may be used to maintain a home 
and thus be used for race perpetuation. From this 
point of view Jung's proposition does not appear 
quite so self-evident. Sucking certainly has a sexual 
goal in that it prepares the individual for becoming 
sexually productive while the sexual act equally has 
a nutritional aspect because the continued suppres- 
sion of sexuality may lead either to illness or to 
such a distortion of the personality as prevents the 
fullest expression of the individual as such. Of 



SUMMARY AND SYNTHESIS 321 

course it is perfectly evident, however, that sucking 
is preponderantly nutritional and the sexual act pre- 
ponderantly sexual. The situation is not unlike the 
symbolisation of the conflict. In neurosis and in 
dreams generally, that is, in all psychological phe- 
nomena dominated by the unconscious, the symbol- 
isation of the regressive tendency of the libido is 
overwhelmingly in evidence, in the states dominated 
by clear consciousness the symbolisation of the pro- 
gressive tendency is by far the most prominent. 
The important point is that in neither state is the 
symbolisation of the submerged tendency wholly ab- 
sent. So it is with other libido manifestations. 
While any given act may be preponderantly nutri- 
tive or sexual it is also, to a much less degree, to be 
sure, the other. The libido tendencies are ambival- 
ant. 

This view is strengthened when we see in more 
primitive conditions and in regressive phenomena 
the nutritional libido serving sexual ends. Many 
examples of this have been given throughout the 
preceding chapters, for example : the cloacal theory 
of birth, eating together as symbolising the sexual 
act, the belief that the woman is impregnated by 
what she eats, that urine is the impregnating fluid, 
etc., etc. It is not so much a question of the nature 
of the energy per se as of the uses to which the 
energy is put. 

Now we come to the vexed question of why, when 
the libido regresses, it should regress to this, that. 



322 CHARACTER FORMATION 

or the other stage of libido development. Why it 
should stop at one place, the homosexual for example, 
rather than at another. This question can be, and 
has been, answered in a variety of ways. In the case 
cited from Jung, at some length, in the last chapter, 
it may be said at once that the libido went back until 
it found something which could be brought upon the 
stage and serve the purposes of the individual. 
This is a characteristic hysterical reaction in which 
the whole play lies very close to consciousness and 
in the main, the split in the personality is superficial, 
at least so far as such symptoms as those described, 
the fright at the horses, is concerned. The hysterical 
character upon which such occurrences are engrafted 
has of course much deeper roots but symptoms of 
the same general character as those connected with 
the fright of the horses really reach only a little way 
beneath the surface. They are characterised too by 
being massive in character, global, that is they refer 
to events as such rather than to partial libido striv- 
ings and therefore have much more apparent mean- 
ing. In the face of a desire, too great to be ade- 
quately handled, we can easily understand such oc- 
currences. 

When we come to deal, however, with the sym- 
bolisation of the partial libido strivings, as of the 
homosexual, narcissistic, anal, or urethral erotic the 
results are no longer so easily understandable. 
They seem much more grotesque and unpsychologi- 
cal. It is because their origins are much more 
deeply unconscious. Why should the libido on its 



SUMMARY AND SYNTHESIS 323 

regressive path stop at one of these way stations 
rather than another? 

In the first place we have seen that the libido 
regresses, the individual is forced back upon and 
within himself, because he has met, in reality, with 
a barrier, a barrier which he cannot overcome, and 
which effectively prevents the flow of libido outward. 
A partial explanation of the reason for the libido 
seeking exit at a certain place rather than some 
other is that it will be forced back further and 
further in proportion to the strength of the barrier. 
This is true but only in part. It does not explain 
why one by-path rather than another should be 
chosen at the same level. Why, for example, at the 
autoerotic level the skin should be chosen as an 
avenue for finding pleasure rather than the function 
of emptying the bladder. 

In addition, therefore, to the drive back from with- 
out we must postulate a drag back from within. 
What is the nature of this drag? 

Originally the drag back was supposed to have 
been conditioned by the sexual trauma, that is, a 
highly painful emotionally ladened sexual experience 
in early childhood. This theory, however, has been 
definitely abandoned long since. In its place, 
though, there has been an inclination to see in the 
drag back an indication that, in the course of develop- 
ment the libido lingered too long at a certain point. 
Something in the life of the individual will show that, 
for some reason, there was a special interest in the 
particular libido expression that is later reanimated. 



324 CHARACTER FORMATION 

in the neurosis for example. This is expressed by 
the term fixation. There has been a certain attach- 
ment of the libido at one of these stations along the 
path of development from which it has never been 
quite able to free itself. But why should the libido 
tend to form such a limiting attachment! 

We may answer this question by saying that it is 
because of a lack of development, especially of affec- 
tive development. While it is true that this is really 
only using a little different terminology to express 
the observed facts still it does help in their compre- 
hension when taken in connection with what has 
been said about the correlation of the neurotic, the 
child and the savage. Then, too, it is really a valu- 
able point of view in approaching a patient with the 
object of trying to help. 

On the other hand the question can be answered, 
as Adler answers it, by saying, in effect, that the 
libido drops back to that place which is subtended 
by an inferior organ. At this place in the integra- 
tion of the individual sublimation is least secure, 
infantile ways of seeking pleasure are more readily 
available, and so the libido finds a way out here by 
following, in its regressive course, the path of least 
resistance. 

Thus w^e see the constant struggle between the 
opposing motives of the pain-pleasure and the reality 
principles. When the conflict issues in a successful 
resolution then man is pushed along on the path of 
progress. Success is most complete when the reality 
motive derives a pleasure premium from the pain- 



SUMMARY AND SYNTHESIS 325 

pleasure motive thus securing a resolution which 
satisfies both tendencies.^ 

The individual is born into the world a member 
of a society which has had an ages-long period of 
growth and development and finds already existing 
institutions, beliefs, standards of conduct to which 
he must make adjustment. We have seen how he 
has had to progressively renounce omnipotence. He 
has had not only to do that but he has had also to 
come into efficient adjustment to those standards 
which he finds already made. These standards are, 
to use the language of Trotter,^ the standards and 
requirements of the '^herd.'' These standards, at 
first, are forced upon him by the parents and the 
whole home situation, particularly by the authority 
of the father, and so become the very fibre of his 
being. Herein lies the reason why the physician, to 
reach the greatest possible degree of success, must 
needs be symbolised by the patient as his father. 
The father image, being of infantile origin, dating 
from the time when the father was the literal source 
of all authority, such a symbolisation becomes a 
great source of power. It reaches its maximum 
when the character of the physician is such as to 
inspire the highest ideals. As the child grows older 
and begins to come into contact with the world out- 

1 Federn, P. : Some General Remarks on the Principles of Pain- 
Pleasure and of Reality. The Psychoanalytic Review, Jan., 1915. 

2 Trotter, W. : Herd Instinct and its Bearing on the Psychology 
of Civilised Man. The Sociological Revieio, July, 1908, and Socio- 
logical Application of the Psychology of Herd Instinct. The Socio- 
logical Revieio, Jan., 1909. 



326 CHARACTER FORMATION 

side the family there too he finds the same necessity, 
even more strongly emphasised, to conform to stand- 
ards of conduct which require a putting off and 
perhaps a thwarting of desires. It is in this situa- 
tion that Trotter sees the origin of the conflict. For 
Trotter, man is a social animal and the herd instinct 
is one of the ultimate, unanalysable components as 
are also the instincts of self-preservation, nutrition, 
and sex. The herd instinct has as its object, so to 
speak, to provide an environment in which the indi- 
vidual can find the fullest personal expression just 
as multicellularity might be said to have come into 
existence to provide for the greatest measure of 
variation for the individual cell. The cell in the one 
case, the individual in the other pooled their issues. 
The association of a group of units, be they cells 
or individuals, for their common good, implies of 
necessity that each member of the group should give 
something, really should give up, surrender some- 
thing to the group and thereby curtail by so much 
his own individuality. At once there issues the 
opposed motives for conduct — individual initiative 
and submission to the group demands. Herein lies 
the necessity for compromise in order to effect an 
efficient social organisation. The group grabs onto 
and tends to perpetuate those customs that serve to 
maintain its integrity and by so doing must of neces- 
sity run counter to the desires of a considerable 
number of its individual constituents. We see this 
in those fundamental rules of conduct passed by 
legislatures — the statutes. A given statute being an 



SUMMARY AND SYNTHESIS 327 

attempt to formulate a given general principle and 
reaching its final pattern only after a series of com- 
promises can hardly be expected to apply to the 
individual situation in a society so complex as ours. 
And just because it takes so much time and energy 
to effect, even such an imperfect formulation, the 
formulation tends always to lag behind, to fail to 
express the general attitude of the community at 
any given time subsequent to its formulation. The 
formulations of the group as such, therefore, tend 
to express the unconscious of the people. This is 
very plainly seen in the phenomena of the crowd, 
so-called, when, for example, the conviction and exe- 
cution of an individual is demanded because he has 
offended the mores, the moral standards of the herd. 
Under such circumstances there is an absolute inabil- 
ity to even listen to a judicial statement of the case 
from the point of the defence. The unconscious 
hate of the mob requires a victim, a scapegoat. 
Listening to the argument might convince and so 
rob it of the satisfaction of this primitive desire, 
so they refuse to listen.^ 

The condition of the individual man in the social 
milieu is therefore a condition of conflict in which 
he is called upon constantly to make certain conces- 
sions to the herd at the expense of his own individual 
desires. While the situation has its undoubted 
advantages as already indicated, no great advances 

3 For a learned anthropological discussion of the meaning of the 
scapegoat symbol read Frazer, J. G.: "The Golden Bough," (3rd 
ed.) Pt. VI, The Scapegoat. 



328 CHARACTER FORMATION 

could have been effected without it, it likewise has 
its disadvantages which are similar to those pointed 
out for the prolongation of the period of infancy 
(Chapter VII). The formulations of the herd tend 
to fixity and therefore make individual progress 
exceedingly difficult when it would transcend them. 
It tends to keep the individual at the level of the 
herd, within the realm of the known, of the certain. 

This tendency to keep individual conduct within 
the confines of that sanctioned by the herd has its 
advantages. It means that the great body of indi- 
vidual tendencies to vary from this standard are 
wiped out, such variations as those that pertain to 
the so-called insane and criminal classes for instance. 
Therefore any variation that succeeds must do so 
because, in the last analysis, it is valuable to the 
herd. Such a variation must at first offend the herd 
and can only succeed at the expense of a more or 
less strenuous conflict v/hich has the function of 
dragging the whole thing into consciousness and so 
effecting a resolution. As such resolutions only in 
time become the points of departure for new con- 
flicts, at a higher plane, so man both as an individual 
and as a member of the social group must of neces- 
sity hold the large majority of his convictions at any 
particular time on faith, that is his belief in them is 
directed by motives that are unconscious. 

Opinions which are held as a result of unconscious 
motivation and those which come as the result of 
experience carefully controlled in a state of mind of 
clear, conscious awareness are readily distinguish- 



SUMMARY AND SYNTHESIS 329 

able. As Trotter puts it, the former are dis- 
tinguished by a feeling of certitude and a belief that 
it would be absurd, obviously unnecessary, unprofit- 
able, undesirable, bad form or wicked to inquire into 
them. The latter lack this feeling of certitude and 
feeling of profound truth and there is no reluctance 
to admitting inquiry into them. That heavy bodies 
fall and fire burns are verifiable and inquiry into 
these phenomena is not resented whereas inquiry 
into the belief of survival after death may be re- 
sented as disreputable and wicked. 

Individualism and gregariousness are thus the 
two elements of the conflict out of which progress 
must come at the social level. Gregariousness set- 
ting the standard of normality from which man 
varies at his peril. Most variants are eliminated as 
insane, defective, criminal, sick or what not; but 
there occasionally arises the superman, the man of 
genius who symbolises his whole group, perhaps 
only two or three persons, a small society of artists, 
the business in a certain section of the country, a 
political unit or perhaps a whole nation, and so, by 
concentration of energy from many sources accord- 
ing to the mechanisms described (Chapter XII), is 
able to drag the whole situation to a little higher 
level. If the man is great enough, controls a large 
enough group, he may become a national hero and 
so serve after his death to stand as a symbol of the 
nation's ideals. As time goes on the apotheosis of 
the hero becomes more complete as it becomes in- 
creasingly easier to hitch ideals to his memory, the 



330 CHARACTER FORMATION 

reality having long since faded into sucli vagueness 
as to offer no obstacles. 

I am nearing the end of my presentation. I have 
tried to draw a picture of man that gave him his 
placement in the scheme of things and did not 
endeavour to separate him from other living beings 
nor from the forces of nature in general. In other 
words, I have tried to show that he was only one of 
the multitudinous manifestations of life and even 
that the general laws of energy, as they apply in the 
inorganic world, are also applicable here. In the 
particular human centre for energy transformation 
I have traced its various expressions as it progres- 
sively compassed more complex, varied and subtle 
adaptations until the level of consciousness was 
reached. In this whole exposition I have tried to 
show that what was really going on, was at bottom 
a redistribution of energy and that at the psychologi- 
cal level the agent of this redistribution, the energy 
carrier is the symbol. 

Metabolism experiments have seemed to indicate 
that the total amount of energy used by the body 
was received in the food and the indications are that 
an adequate diet, expressed in terms of energy, 
amounts to 30 to 45 calories per kilogram of body 
weight or, on the average, about 2500 calories for the 
twenty-four hours. A somewhat less abstract ex- 
pression of the amount of energy needed is in the 
terms of alcohol burned. The energy evolved by a 
lamp burning 300 grams of absolute alcohol in a 



SUMMARY AND SYNTHESIS 331 

day ^ would represent approximately the amount of 
energy needed by the average human being. 

While such statements as these are correct in a 
way they may lead to somewhat of a misapprehen- 
sion. As I have already suggested, apropos of 
Fabre's spiders, it seems quite possible that we have 
neglected to take into account the possible sources 
of energy derived through the multitudinous forms 
of receptors. Herrick^ gives us a list, admittedly 
incomplete, of some twenty-seven varieties which 
are capable of analysing the environment through a 
perfectly tremendous register reaching all the way 
from the simple touch, through sound vibrations as 
rapid as 30,000 per second, to those ethereal vibra- 
tions producing sensations of light and colour and 
reaching the extreme limit of perception only at a 
rate of 800,000 billion per second. 

The number of calories needed by the individual 
as determined by metabolism experiments seems 
quite inadequate to account for the work the indi- 
vidual is able to do, certainly when we think of the 
results that mental work may bring about. It would 
seem that the individual was a highly specialised 
organism for the purpose of transmitting and trans- 
muting energy and that the energy taken in by the 
food, and expressed as calories, was for the purpose 
of the up-keep of this machine only. In other words, 

* stiles, P. G.: "Nutritional Physiology," 1915. 
5 Herrick, C. J. : "An Introduction to Neurology." Philadelphia, 
W. B. Saunders Co., 1915. 



332 CHARACTER FORMATION 

the various avenues of discharge of energy tlirough 
the body, the nerve fibres and what not, are only, so 
to speak, wires along which the messages which come 
from the receptors may be transmitted. The nerve 
cells have often been likened to batteries which 
created the energy used by the individual which they 
discharged along these pathways. It seems more 
probable that they are much more like the batteries 
which supply the current to a telegraph or telephone 
wire, only supplying enough current to insure the 
efficient transmission of messages. The energy 
which is liberated by the pulling of a fire box in a 
city could hardly be accounted for by the batteries 
connected with the fire alarm circuit. The nerve 
cells, if this conception is true, only elaborate energy 
for the up-keep of their respective circuits, that is, 
the various branches of the neuron, and so keep all 
the lines alive for instant response. 

This will become a little clearer by an illustration 
at the psychic level. The influence which a man 
exercises upon his fellows and upon his time may 
often extend over a considerable period after he is 
dead. We are still influenced to a very large extent, 
almost altogether, by the ideas and ideals which have 
been formulated and expressed by word, precept or 
example by those who have gone before. The enor- 
mous energy releasing capacity of an idea can hardly 
receive its final explanation in the caloric intake of 
the individual who first formulated it or even in the 
amount of energy elaborated by his individual nerve 
cells. It can only be understood if we think of the 



SUMMARY AND SYNTHESIS 333 

individual, not as separated from all other indi- 
viduals and from the rest of matter animate and 
inanimate, but as a vehicle for the transformation 
of energy which streams through him along the paths 
laid down and effects its peculiar results because it 
has been transformed. 

The peculiar results in which energy manifests 
itself are dependent upon the specialisation of the 
human machine, upon the specific pathways for 
energy discharge which have been laid down. It 
can further be understood by the histological struc- 
ture of the nervous system and the physiological 
variation in synaptic resistances, which either con- 
centrates the energy along the line of discharge of a 
final common path (Sherrington) or spreads it out 
to influence widely separate structures (the law of 
avalanche of Cajal). But no such explanation based 
upon the number of calories absorbed from the food 
is possibly adequate to account for the tremendous 
release of energy in the community as a result of the 
single word *^fire." 

The symbol is the vehicle for the carrying of 
energy from person to person, from the past to the 
present and into the future. The symbol ^* patriot- 
ism'' may release the energies of a whole nation 
just as in the individual the symbol *^ contest'' may 
mobilise the liver sugar and discharge it into the 
blood to provide energy for the extra exertion ex- 
pected of the muscles. Cannon ^ and Fiske analysed 
the urine of a football squad after the game and 

6 hoc. cit. 



334 CHARACTER FORMATION 

found sugar in twelve cases. It is significant that 
five of those cases were of substitutes who had not 
been called upon to enter the game at all and finally 
one excited spectator, whose urine was examined, 
also showed glycosuria which disappeared the fol- 
lowing day. Similar results have been reached with 
reference to other exertions, such as examinations. 
The energy bound up and concentrated in the symbol 
is hardly capable of measurement by the crude 
methods of calorimetry. 

The energetics of the symbolic level is the new 
avenue of approach to an understanding of man. 
The problems of this field must be approached from 
the standpoint of genetics and by the use of concepts 
which are dynamic as opposed to static. The ap- 
proach on its philosophical side must be controlled 
by an attitude which is at once pragmatic and, above 
all, humanistic. 

It is no longer sufficient to consider some single 
aspect of human functioning alone and by itself; it 
has to be related to the problem of the whole indi- 
vidual, considered from the standpoint of the goal 
of the individual as a whole, rather than the immedi- 
ate object of the function. Man is pre-eminently a 
social animal and the struggle for existence and for 
fulfilment has become, more than ever before, a 
struggle at psychological and social levels : he must 
then be considered from these standpoints to under- 
stand what is taking place. The great artists, poets, 
dramatists, novelists, have always treated man in 
this way. It remains for the psychologists to follow 



SUMMARY AND SYNTHESIS 335 

in their lead and realise that only by considering 
man as a whole, by studying each part only as bear- 
ing upon the problem of the whole, can the larger 
meanings of his activities be interpreted. 



INDEX 



Abel, 68, 69. 

Abraham, K., 165, 171. 

Abstraction, 84. 

Act as an end product, 95. 

Adaptation, 22. 

Adjustment, 22. 

Adler, A., 100, 246, 251, 252, 

263, 277, 278, 279, 308, 309, 

324. 
Adrenalin, 255. 
Affect of dream, 142. 
Affective development, lack of, 

324. 
Affectivity, retardation of, 290. 
Agents for transmitting and 

transmuting energy, 115. 
Aggressionstrieb, 278. 
Allmacht der Gedanken, 180. 
Ambivalency, 67, 70, 313. 
Ambivalent type of reaction, 

165. 
Amnesia, 288. 
Anal erotic, relation of money 

to, 201. 
Anal eroticism, 199. 
Analogy, reasoning by, 102. 
Anderson, H. M., 262. 
Animism, 97, 304. 
Anxiety, 273. 
Apperceptive mass, 82. 
Aristotle, 121, 279. 
Autoerotic barrier, 198. 
Autoeroticism, 197. 
Automatic activity, 29. 
Automatisms, proving ground 

of, 30. 



Awareness, 30. 
Azam, 5. 

Bain, 68. 

Barker, L. F., 247. 

Bates, W. H., 254. 

Bazeley, J. H., 262. 

Beethoven, 249. 

Bergson, H., 211, 221, 243. 

Bernheim, 4. 

Bertschinger, H., 141. 

Beunis, 4. 

Binet, A., 6. 

Bisexuality of symbols, 99. 

Bleuler, 67, 69. 

Bolton, J. S., 11, 260. 

Bourru, 5. 

Braid, 4. 

Breuer, 12. 

Burot, 5. 

Cannon, W. B., 255, 256, 333. 

Carelessness, 202. 

Cathartic cleansings, 313. 

Censor, endopsychic, 132, 143. 

Ceremonials, 84. 

Character, 58. 

Character traits, 277. 

Charcot, 4. 

Child, attachment to family, 

147, 152. 
Classification, 45, 47. 
Compensation, 249, 277. 
Complex, 38, 187. 
Complex, incest, 114. 
Compromise, 326. 



337 



338 



INDEX 



Concepts as symbols, 116. 

Condensation, 132, 134, 136 

Conduct, 25, 103, 264. 

Conflict, 42, 57, 62, 70, 72, 74, 
121, 307, 318. 

Conflict, moment of, 30; reso- 
lution of, 140, 270. 

Conflicts, 168; of neurotics, 99. 

Conscious motives, test of, 328. 

Consciousness, 34, 40, 41, 115, 
317; appearance of, 30, 31; 
as compensation, 272; discon- 
tinuity of, 35; as energy, 33; 
as expression of conflict, 31 ; 
field of, 32; retraction of 
field of, 7; as incipient 
anxiety, 273; lapses of, 36; 
now of, 58; race, 32, 60; as 
remedial, 273; splitting of, 
36. 

Cortical reactions, 51. 

Crile, G. W., 257. 

Criminal, 328. 

Curiosity, 198, 212. 



Darwin, 82. 

Death, 271. 

Deckphenomene, 250. 

Decomposition, 136. 

Delusions of grandeur, 191; in 
paresis, 191. 

Delusions of influence, 186. 

Dementia paralytica, 260. 

Demosthenes, 250. 

Determinism, 14. 

Diabetes mellitus, 256. 

Diagram of forces, 19. 

Disease, 33; entities, 33; proc- 
esses, 33. 

Disorderliness, 202. 

Displacement, 131, 142. 

Dissociation, 10, 36. 

Distortion, 131, 142. 



Dream, fimction of, 128; im- 
portance of, 144; latent con- 
tent of, 130, 142; manifest 
content of, 130, 142; pre- 
lusory function of, 141; 
secondary elaboration of, 131, 
142; teleological significance 
of, 138, 139, 140. 

Dream material, 127. 

Dream mechanisms, 117, 318. 

Dream work, 140. 

Dreams of death of parent, 162. 

Dreams, triviality of, 128. 

Dufay, 5. 

Economy, 200. 

Ego-concept, 230. 

Egotism, 191. 

Man vital, 42. 

Electra complex, 149, 151. 

Ellis, H., 126. 

Emerson, 101. 

Emotions, 52; antipathic, 156, 

212. 
Energy, 317. 

Energy, nature vs. uses of, 321. 
Energy transfers in resolution 

of conflict, 315. 
Eppinger, 67. 
Erogenous zones, 199. 
Exhibitionism, 198, 212. 
Exogamy, 49. 
Extroversion, 217, 220. 

Fabre, J. H., 242. 

Fact, psychological, 292. 

Fairy tales, 172. 

Falta, W., 257. 

Family, Holy, 224. 

Family neurotic romance, 148, 

158. 
Family romance, 145. 
Fear, 250. 
Feeling of influence, 233. 



INDEX 



339 



Ferenezi, S., 91, 108, 128, 177, 

186. 
Fildes, P., 262. 
Fiske, J., 145, 333. 
Fixation, 324. 
Flournoy, 6, 310. 
Folk-lore, 172, 173. 
Fore-conscious, 37, 54, 58. 
Fore-pleasure, 198. 
Frazer, J. G., 236. 
Freud, S., 12, 126, 135, 143, 

163, 212, 213, 262, 294, 319. 
Friedmann, 11. 
Function of the real, 9. 

Genetic method, 15. 

Gierlich, 11. 

Glueck, B., 193. 

Gluttony, 212. 

Glycosuria, 256. 

God, 224. 

Gottmensch complex, 190, 212; 

ambivalent expressions of, 

192; basis of, 193. 
Grandparents, 168. 
Gregariousness, 329. 
Gregory, M. S., 282. 

Haddon, A. C., 86. 

Hall, G. S., 39, 167, 229, 248, 

272, 310. 
Hate, 202, 212. 
Hates, 168. 
Heaven, 45, 224. 
Hegelian formula, 274. 
Herd, 325, 328. 
Herd instinct, 43, 
Hero, 171, 329. 
Herrick, C. J., 31, 331. 
Hess, 67. 

Heteromorphosis, 18, 
Heterosexual love, 198. 
Hierarchy of organs, 196. 
Homosexuality, 197, 212, 



Hope and fear as creators of 

consciousness, 274. 
Horme, 42. 
Humbleness, 190. 
Hypnoidal state, 10. 
Hypnotic state, 36. 
Hypnotism, 3, 10. 
Hysteria, 7, 10. 

"I" and "not I," 186, 197. 
Ibsen, 174. 

Idea, 332; as symbol, 115. 
Ideas, 37, 87; of persecution, 

226. 
Identification, 134, 136. 
Immortality, 271. 
Immunity, 263. 
Incest, 153, 155, 197; barrier, 

198; complex, 294; horror of, 

212; taboos, 154. 
Individual as biological unit, 

24, 266; the concept, 239; 

relation to environment, 21. 
Individualism, 329. 
Infantile characteristics, 187. 
Inferiority, sense of, 250, 277. 
Insane, 328. 
Instinct, 306. 

Integration, 22; lessened capa- 
city for, 233. 
Introjection, 186, 233. 
Introversion, 217, 228, 285; of 

libido, 97. 

James, W., 218. 
Janet, P., 7, 12, 249. 
Jealousies, 168. 
Jehovah complex, 190. 
Jelliffe, S. E., 172. 
Jung, C. G., 219, 286, 311, 319, 
320, 322. 

Kant, 20. 

Kempf, E. J., 65, 113, 203. 



340 



INDEX 



Kidd, B., 91. 
Kleist, 11. 
Kleptomania, 198. 
Kraepelin, 11, 193. 

Laudator temporis acti, 183. 

Law of avalanche, 333. 

Le Chatelier, theorem of, 64, 
270. 

Levels of adjustment and inte- 
gration, 22; cultural, 232; re- 
action, 109, 196. 

Libido, 42, 73, 98, 153, 196, 317; 
energic concept of, 93; as 
energy, 320; introversion of, 
97; nutritional, 153, 196, 203, 
319; progressive, 312; re- 
gressive, 312; sexual, 153, 
196, 197, 203, 319; strivings, 
partial, 195, 318. 

Liebault, 4. 

Liegeois, 4. 

Loeb, 17. 

Looking, 198. 

Love, 153, 169, 197; and hate, 
202. 

Lust, 212. 

Lustprinzip, 56. 

Luys, 4. 

MacNish, 5. 

Maeder, 310, 311, 312. 

Magic, 85; rites, 189; thinking, 

180; words, 180. 
Masculinity, complete, 277. 
Masturbation, 203. 
Mcintosh, J., 262. 
Mencken, H. L., 218. 
Mental disease, 1; classification 

of, 2. 
Mesmer, 3. 

Metabolism experiments, 330. 
Micromanic ideas, 193. 
Mother-in-law, 166. 



Mott, 262. 
Mozart, 249. 
Multiple personality, 5. 
Mystery, sense of, 234. 
Mythology, 172. 
Myths, 171. 

Name, 231. 
Naming, 3. 
Narcissism, 197. 
Neatness, 201. 
Negativism, 72. 
Neurosis, 278. 
Nietzsche, 100, 217, 219. 

Obeisances, 84. 

Obersteiner, H., 261, 263. 

Object love, 197. 

Obstinacy, 200. 

Odin, 250. 

CEdipus complex, 149, 174. 

Opposites, path of, 272. 

Orderliness, 200. 

Organ, inferior, 308; infer- 
iority, 245. 

Organism as transmitter and 
transformer of energy, 110. 

Origin of life, 206. 

Omnipotence, 203; magic-hallu- 
cinatory, 178; unconditioned, 
177; with help of magic 
gestures, 179. 

Omniscience, 198. 

Osier, W., 257. 

Ostwald, W., 217, 219. 

Overdetermination, 132. 

Pain, 272. 

Papyri of Philonous, 2, 121, 

222. 
Paranoia, 226. 
Paranoiac traits, 166. 
Past, evidences of the, 214. 
Pawlow, 263. 



INDEX 



341 



Personality, 7; definition of, 96; 

loss of definiteness of, 233. 
Perversions, 303. 
Petrarch, 215. 
Phantasy, 288; formation, 119; 

object of, 305; teleological 

function of, 310. 
Phantasies, fecal, 200; urinary, 

200. 
Phratries, 49. 
Physician, faith in, 223. 
Plateau, 19. 

Pleasure, 199; principle, 56. 
Pleasures of expulsion, 203. 
Pompousness, 198, 212. 
Poussee vitale, 42. 
Predisposition, 289. 
Prince, 6, 11. 
Projection, 225. 
Protagoras, 222. 
Psychasthenia, 7, 8, 9. 
Psyche, 62, 318; as energy, 

115; hegemony of, 196. 
Psychoanalysis, function of, 100. 
Psychological level, 24; ten- 
sion, 8, 9; type of reaction, 

25. 
Psychology, parallelistic, 260. 
Psychopathology, descriptive, 3; 

interpretative, 3. 
Psycho-physical parallelism, 267. 
Psychosis, naming of, 2. 

Race-perpetuation, 153, 196. 
Rank, O., 156, 171. 
Reality, 50; principle, 56. 
Realitatsprinzip, 56. 
Reasoning by analogy, 102. 
Re-birth, 184. 

Recapitulation, law of, 236. 
Reflex, 29; action, 263; condi- 
tioned, 264. 
Regicides, 166. 
Regression, 286, 301, 304. 



Relations of brothers and sis- 
ters, 167; of children to 
parents, 156. 

Religion, 224. 

Repression, 42, 62, 71. 

Resymbolisation, 141. 

Reversed parentage phantasy, 
168, 275. 

Root complex, 295. 

Sadism, 202. 

Scapegoat, 327. 

Secondary states, 5, 37. 

Self-assertiveness, 191, 198. 

"Self" and "not self," 180, 228. 

Self-preservation, 153, 196. 

Self-sufficiency, 191. 

Sexual, importance of, 97. 

Sexuality, polymorphous per- 
verse, 199; of symbolism, 97. 

Shakespeare, 227. 

Sherrington, 126, 333. 

Shinn, M. W., 229, 230. 

Shock theory, 289. 

School of Nancy, 4. 

Schopenhauer, 74, 278. 

Sicherungstendenz, 278. 

Sidis, B., 6, 11, 12. 

Slovenliness, 202. 

Social psychology, 269. 

Society, 325. 

Socrates, 250. 

Somnambulism, hysterical, 10. 

Southard, E. E., 261. 

Spencer, H., 84. 

Sub-conscious, 36. 

Sublimation, 42, 98, 279. 

Sub-totems, 46. 

Success, 324. 

Symbol accumulates energy of 
conflict, 313; as carrier of 
energy, 114, 280, 309, 333; 
energic value of, 108, 223; as 
energy transmitter, 113; 



342 



INDEX 



function of, 316; phylo- 
genetic meaning of, 108; spe- 
cial advantage of, in develop- 
ment, 112. 

Symbolic level, energetics of, 
334. 

Symbolisation, 305, 319, 321; 
object of, 307. 

Symbolism, 56, 76; fundamental 
principle of, 81; sexuality of, 
97; and the unconscious, 87. 

Symbols, anagogic, interpreta- 
tion of, 106; bi-polarity of, 
279; of fore-conscious, 87; 
interpretation of, 101; pic- 
torial, 86; psychoanalytic in- 
terpretation of, 106; super- 
ficial interpretation of, 105; 
of unconscious, 88, 91. 

Tenderness, 212. 

Thalamic reactions, 51. 

Thinking, concrete way of, 83; 
conscious, 89; magic, 180; 
two ways of, 118; uncon- 
scious ways of, 93. 

Thought, all-powerfulness of, 
177, 186, 318. 

Totemism, 46, 185. 



Totems, 46. 
Touching, 198. 
Traumatic moment, 292. 
Trial and error, 50. 
Tropisms, 18. 
Tyr, 250. 

ubertragung, 226. 

Uncleanliness, 202. 

Unconscious, 35, 37, 39, 43, 50, 
54, 58, 89, 90, 92, 107, 120, 
204; action controlled by, 61; 
criteria of, 94; motives, test 
of, 328; symbolism and the, 
87. 

Unconsciousness, 36. 

Urethral erotic, 203. 

Urim and Thummim, 70. 

Vidar, 250. 
Vulcan, 250. 

Wernicke, 11. 
White, A. D., 212. 
White, W. A., 6, 11, 12. 
Will to power, 177, 195, 258. 
Wish, 120. 

Yih King, 69. 



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The Interpretation of Dreams 

By professor SIGMUND FREUD, M.D., LL.D. 

Formerly Professor of Nervous and Mental Diseases in the University 

of Vienna 

Translated by A. A. BRiLL, Ph.B., M.D. 

Chief of the Neurological Department Bronx Hospital and Dispen- 
sary ; Clinical Assistant in Psychiatry and Neurology, College 
of Physicians and Surgeons, New York 

Cloth, 510 pp., index, literary index, 8vo, $4.00 

The general advance in the study of abnormal mental 
processes has called particular attention to the dream, whose 
riddle has been solved by Professor Freud, the noted neu- 
rologist at the University of Vienna, in connection with his 
study of nervous and mental diseases. Professor Freud as- 
serts that dreams are perfect psychological mechanisms and 
are neither foolish nor useless. He found that dreams 
when analyzed by his method, exposed the most intimate 
recesses of personality, and that, in the study of nervous 
and mental diseases, it is mainly through dreams that the 
symptoms of the disease can be explained and cured. This 
epoch-making book furnishes many useful and interesting 
contributions to the study and treatment of nervous and 
mental diseases and is most valuable to physicians and 
psychologists. 



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Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



/ 



Psychopathology of Everyday Life 

By professor SIGMUND FREUD, LL.D. 
Translated by A A. BRILL, Ph.B, M.D. 

Cloth, demy 8vo, 338 pp., index, $3.30 

This book, which is largely concerned with psychological 
causes of those slight lapses of tongue and pen and memory 
to which every one is subject, is perhaps, of all Freud's 
books, the best adapted for the general reader in addition 
to the scientist. It sheds a flood of light on many phenom- 
ena which most people are apt to regard as insignificant, 
but which are really full of meaning for the student of the 
inner life. 

" A valuable contribution to the psychoanalytic literature 
available in our own language is made by the translation of 
this important and popular work . . . the more carefully 
the book is studied the more is one impressed with the pro- 
found genius of the author which guides ever farther into 
those unexplored depths to which he has given us the open- 
ing key." — Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease. 

" The book is as entertaining as it is useful, and will be 
valuable not only to the physician and professional psycholo- 
gist, but to pastors, parents and social workers." — Boston 
Transcript. 



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Publishers 64^66 Fifth Avenue New York 



THREE IMPORTANT BOOKS BY 

HENRY H. GODDARD 

Director of the Research Laboratory of the Training School at Vine 

land, N. J., for Feeble-Minded Girls and Boys 

r 66016- JVlindedneSSI Its Causes and Consequences 

Cloth, 8vo, 599 pages, $4.00 
It differs from most of those in the field in that it is what may be 
termed a source study. Instead of generalizing on the subject of 
f eeble-mindedness, presenting arguments for this theory and that and 
concluding with vague speculations, Dr. Goddard gives facts. The 
book is so comprehensive in scope and the cases exhibit such a variety 
of disorders that not infrequently will the parent, the teacher, and all 
who have to do with incorrigible, delinquent, or unfortunate children 
encounter characteristics similar to those displayed by the subjects 
discussed by Dr. Goddard. This work, therefore, contains a thorough 
consideration of this vital subject which was so interestingly pre 
sented, in the case of a single family, in the author's former book, 
"The Kallikak Family." 



Th6 Kallikak Family 



A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness 

Cloth, 8vo, $1.50 

"No more striking example of the supreme force of heredity could 
be desired." — The Dial. 

"The most illuminating and complete of all the studies in heredity 
that have ever been made, with the view of showing the descent of 
mental deficiency." — Bulletin of the Medical and Chirurgical Faculty 
of Maryland. 

"This is the most convincing of the sociological studies brought out 
by the eugenics movement." — The Independent. 

"Dr. Goddard has made a 'find' ; and he has also had the training 
which enables him to utilize his discovery to the utmost." — American 
lournal of Psychology. 



The Criminal Imbecile 



Illustrated, Cloth, i2mo, $1.30 
This is an analysis of three murder cases, in which the Binet tests 
were used, accepted in court and the accused adjudged imbeciles in 
the legal sense (stientifically, morons). Three types of defectives are 
illustrated in the three cases. Responsibility is discussed. The book 
is important to all practitioners in psychiatry, students of feeble-mind- 
edness and social problems, and to criminal lawyers. 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



The Sexual Life of the Child 

By dr. albert MOLL 

Translated from the German by DR. EDEN PAUL, with an 
introduction by EDWARD L. THORNDIKE, 

Professor of Educational Psychology, Teachers College, Columbia 

University 

Clvth, 339 pp., index, i2mo, $1.75 

The translation of this book will be welcomed by men and women 
from many different professions, but alike in the need of preparation 
to guide the sex-life of boys and girls and to meet emergencies caused 
by its corruption by weakness within or attack from without. Dr. 
Moll's book is a vital contribution to the awakening interest in sexual 
life, and an undoubted a.d to the practicing physician. 

The Medical Times says : "After reading a great variety of trash 
on the subject of sexual education of the boys and girls of this gen- 
eration, it is a pleasure to have the subject taken up in a frank, open, 
dignified manner by Dr. Moll. He leads one through the mazes of the 
sexual development of the child, and so cleverly analyzes its real feel- 
ings that one instinctively feels one's self well qualified to interpret 
child psychology and to apply the lessons gained therefrom." 

A Textbook of Insanity 

By CHARLES MERCIER, M.D. 

Lecturer on Insanity at the Medical Schools of the Westminster Hos- 
pital, Charing Cross Hospital, and the Royal Free Hospital 

New Second Edition. Cloth, i2mo, 348 pp., $2.25 

The new edition of Dr. Mercier's authoritative work on insanity 
will be found much extended in scope and practically rewritten. The 
author is probably one of the best known British Alienists, whose 
methods of instruction have been of great assistance to the student. 

The aim of the book is to supply a long-needed want, namely, that 
of a textbook in compact form for the use of students. The author 
has made a distinction between forms of insanity and varieties of 
insanity, a distinction which removes the difficulties of classification 
which have been so great a stumbling block to writers on insanity for 
generations. 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 

Publishers 64-66 Fifth Avenue New York 



